january 2007 $4.45 “Instaurare omnia in Christo” A Journal of Roman Catholic Tradition Our Lady of Quito The Centennial of the Miracle assed M r strat You llu fully i anation , Knoew d e l i ta xpl ss is a d -by-step e l Latin Ma step raditiona ED FOR T T of the REPRIN TIME NOW E FIRST OR ! TH LL COL IN FU Know Your Mass Fr. Demetrius Manousos Originally published by the Catechetical Guild in 1954 (Imprimatur Francis Cardinal Spellman), this is a “comic” book unlike any other. Know Your Mass is a detailed, fully illustrated step-by-step explanation of the Traditional Latin Mass now reprinted for the first time in full color! The book presents the theology of the Mass in a manner easily understood by children and yet incredibly interesting and informative for adults as well. This should come as no surprise to those who have read The Seven Sacraments, another Angelus Press Fr. Manousos reprint. He has the amazing ability to take solid theology and present it to children...without dumbing it down. He was truly a gifted writer. This makes Know Your Mass an excellent catechetical tool for all ages. All parts of the Holy Sacrifice are covered, from the preparation for Mass, the altar, sacred vessels and vestments, liturgical actions, the sanctuary, and some liturgical history as well, to helpful suggestions for children to get the most–or should we say give the most–at Mass. Ideal, NO, PERFECT, as a First Holy Communion gift. Great for converts as well. Anyone who delves into this book cannot come away ignorant of the true significance of the liturgical representation of Our Lord’s Sacrifice on Calvary that is the Holy Mass. Highly recommended. 96pp, softcover, color throughout, STK# 1022 $14.95 See the article on Our Lady of Quito, Ecuador, on pp.2-13 of this issue GARCIA MORENO N EW I NG ER F F O Fr. Augustine Berthe Can governments publicly profess the Catholic faith in modern times? Catholic governments were formerly commonplace when Christendom extended throughout Europe. But now such a possibility is scorned as being out of date and impractical. Instead, the Freemasonic axiom of separation of Church and State has become universally accepted, despite the fact that this notion has been repeatedly condemned by the Church. In this book, the reader will see that it is possible to vanquish the Revolution and wrest nations from its mortal embrace: Garcia Moreno, President of Ecuador, held the Revolution at bay for 15 years. Alone among all the heads of state, in the wake of the French Revolution and the collapse of societies it brought about, Garcia Moreno restored Christian government in Ecuador and merited the name of “Regenerator of the Fatherland”; alone, surrounded by tyrants who fought over the nations only to empty their treasuries, their minds and their hearts, he heaped immense benefits upon his nation in the material, intellectual, moral and religious spheres. A heroic martyr for Catholic civilization, he gave his blood for this noble cause. This is THE definitive biography of Garcia Moreno written by French priest Fr. Augustine Berthe in 1877 and translated into English by Lady Elizabeth Herbert of Lea in 1889 (a fascinating person in her own right: wife of the British Minister of War and Anglican convert to Catholicism). “God does not die.” “Here the President of the Republic Gabriel Garcia Moreno was assassinated.” s: de u incl trations us hs 19 ill otograp h 43 p 401pp, softcover, 66 photos and drawings, STK# 3097. $17.99 Statue of Garcia Moreno “Instaurare omnia in Christo—To restore all things in Christ.” Motto of Pope St. Pius X The ngelus A Journal of Roman Catholic Tradition 2915 Forest Avenue “To publish Catholic journals and place them in the hands of honest men is not enough. It is necessary to spread them as far as possible that they may be read by all, and especially by those whom Christian charity demands we should tear away from the poisonous sources of evil literature.” —Pope St. Pius X January 2007 Volume XXX, Number 1 • Kansas City, Missouri 64109 English-language Editor and Publisher for the International Society of Saint Pius X our lady of quito . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Translated by Fr. Paul Kimball PublisheR Fr. John Fullerton Editor Fr. Kenneth Novak he said, she said . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Sports and Family Mr. & Mrs. Dennis Hammond Assistant Editor Mr. James Vogel business Manager Mr. Jason Greene Editorial assistant and proofreading Miss Anne Stinnett Design and Layout Mr. Simon Townshend MARKETING Mr. Christopher McCann comptroller Miss Lisa Powell customer service Mrs. Mary Anne Hall Mr. John Rydholm Shipping and Handling Mr. Jon Rydholm THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT The Good Shepherd, the Wolves, and the Mercenaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 a will and a way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Mrs. Maura Koulik A brief catechism of religious tolerance . . . . 30 Fr. François Knittel book review: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 The Church and the Land by Fr. Vincent McNabb, O.P. Dr. Peter Chojnowski De Morte Quadam Virtuali (On a Virtual Death) . . . . 40 Fr. Brendan Arthur divine intimacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Fr. Bernard-Marie de Chivré, O.P. Questions and answers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Fr. Peter Scott The Angelus (ISSN 10735003) is published monthly under the patronage of St. Pius X and Mary, Queen of Angels. Publication offices are located at 2915 Forest Avenue, Kansas City, Missouri, 64109, (816) 753-3150, FAX (816) 753-3557. Periodicals Postage Rates paid at Kansas City, Missouri. Copyright © 2007 by Angelus Press, Inc. All rights reserved. Manuscripts are welcome. They must be double-spaced and deal with the Roman Catholic Church, its history, doctrine, or present crisis. Unsolicited manuscripts will be used at the discretion of the Editorial Staff. Unused manuscripts cannot be returned unless sent with a self-addressed, stamped envelope. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: The Angelus, Angelus Press, 2915 Forest Avenue, Kansas City, MO 64109-1529. ON OUR COVER: The miraculous image of Our Lady of Quito. See the article on pp.213 of this issue. Also, see the new book available, Garcia Moreno (inside front cover) for the rest of the story. The Angelus Subscription Rates US, Canada, & Mexico Other Foreign Countries All payments must be in US funds only. 1 year 2 years $29.95 $52.45 $57.95 $94.50 2 OUR LADY OF T r a n s l a t e d Ecuador was the first nation officially consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The consecration took place on March 25, 1874; on August 6, 1892, it was consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. In the solemn consecration of 1874, read by the very important representative of the Church, Archbishop Checa y Barba, and afterwards by the president of the nation, García Moreno [see new book available on the inside front cover– Ed.], an irrevocable pact was sealed: b y F r . P a u l K i m b a l l QU Prostrate before your divine presence, all the public powers of the Church and of the State offer and consecrate to Thee now and for always the Republic of Ecuador as Thy exclusive possession and property.1 The pact was sealed with the blood of the president, assassinated on August 6, 1875, a first Friday, in the same church as the consecration. That day Garcia Moreno had noted in his spiritual diary: “Lord Jesus, show me what it is that I ought to do today for Thy love.” Also in the same church, on the Holy Thursday of 1877, the Archbishop was poisoned to death. At the death of Garcia Moreno, a moderate liberal, Antonio Barrero, was elected, but General Veintimilla, an extreme liberal who was defeated in 1883, rebelled. There was a moderately lawful era until 1895. Then, 1 Cf. the Prayer of Total Consecration by St. Maximilian Kolbe: O Immaculata, Queen of Heaven and earth, refuge of sinners and our most loving Mother, to whom God deigned to entrust the entire order of mercy, I, N. N., an unworthy sinner, cast myself at Thy feet humbly imploring Thee to take me with all that I am and have, wholly to Thyself as Thy possession and property. Please make of me, of all my powers of soul and body, of my whole life, death and eternity, whatever most pleases Thee. If it please Thee, use all that I am and have without reserve wholly to accomplish what was said of Thee: “She will crush your head,” and “Thou alone hast destroyed all heresies in the whole world.” Let me be a fit instrument in Thy immaculate and merciful hands in order to increase reverence for Thee as much as possible in so many fallen-away and lukewarm souls, and thus to help extend as far as possible the blessed Kingdom of the most Sacred Heart of Jesus. For wherever Thou dost enter, Thou shalt implore upon it the grace of conversion and sanctification, for all graces come to us from the most Sacred Heart of Jesus only through Thy hands. The ANGeluS • January 2007 www.angeluspress.org Last April 20, 2006, was the hundredth anniversary of the miraculous image of Our Lady of Quito [Key ´toe] in Ecuador, a favorite topic of interest of the translator, who also visited there recently. The article starts with the necessary historical background. F QUITO, Ecuador 3 Quito QUEEN OF ECUADOR - The refectory of St. Gabriel’s College in Quito where the miracle occurred.The image of Our Lady of Quito as the boys saw it is circled. These 40 boys were the witnesses of the movement of the eyes in the picture of Our Lady of Quito. They were photographed (1906) with Father Prefect Andrew Roesch and Brother Assistant Supervisor Louis Alberdi. Seated on either sides of Father and Brother Louis are the three 11year-old boys, who on Holy Thursday of the previous week had made their First Communion (left to right): James Chávez, Charles Herrman, and Peter Donoso. They were the first ones to notice the crying image which was quickly put in a place of honor.  an extreme liberal, General Eloy Alfaro, rebelled and remained in power for 20 years, taking part in revolutions. He was dictator from 1895-1901 and from 1906-11 thanks to another revolution. Finally he returned to rebel against his successor in 1911, but was defeated and lynched in 1912. General Leónidas Plaza, a companion of the former, governed from 1901-05 and returned to power in 1912-16 by another rebellion–and so the countless rebellions continued. In 1895 General Alfaro, “a model of infamy,” promised Pope Leo XIII to maintain harmony with the Vatican, but in the following year he broke the Concordat. He expelled the Jesuits from the Amazon region, where they had founded 152 villages. He forbade the establishment of new religious congregations in the country. In 1900 the Ecuadorian Congress decreed the secularization of convents. It restricted the freedom of teaching, and the colleges were unable to give examinations; in the State schools it suppressed the teaching of religion. It revoked the decree of the National Consecration to the Sacred Heart. In 1901 the government seized part of St. Gabriel’s College from the Jesuits. The following year General Plaza established civil marriage and divorce. In 1904 he forbade novitiates, and deprived the religious institutions of their goods, the slogan being: “Independence from Spain, independence from Rome.” In 1906, Alfaro reached the point of a  It is a key phrase for understanding the hidden conspiracies that direct history. The attack on the Church, Christ’s kingdom, an attack directed without ceasing by the Prince of this world (“the two standards,” following St. Ignatius, in the perpetual battle), has reached in the last centuries the main political powers that favored the Church: the Spanish empire, the Austro-Hungarian empire (World War I), the French and the Portuguese colonial empire (World War II), thus dealing a hard blow to the Catholic missions. The consequences have been terrible. Which are the hidden hands? Since the 18th century Masonry (in its various branches) has introduced itself into Spain on this side and on the other side of the ocean, and was the great motivator of liberal antireligious “change,” about which these same men are vainglorious and for any reason they denounced the Popes and Catholic historians. (There are many enlightening facts, e.g., the letters of Napoleon to the lodges of North America urging them to stir up rebellion in the Spanish lands overseas by exaggerating the defects of the unitary government, defects which will always be had, but whose remedy is worse than the sickness, inasmuch as the present day economic and religious sluggishness proves that united countries were the most advanced. Why will one not study history more?) Of course, the takeover of power in our countries by anti-Christian governments, and the consequent national decadence, is a punishment for sins. The thesis is insupportable (e.g., of Aranguren) that countries by being Catholic are more underdeveloped than Protestant countries, as if God treats His better children worse. Nor is the “martyr” theory admissible, for the same reason: namely, that Spain bled itself through defending Catholicism against the Protestants; it bled itself more in the Reconquest, and its fight for the Cross had as its reward an empire. It is necessary to loudly proclaim these truths and historical criteria in order to wake up sleeping consciences lacking any ideals. To eliminate the infuriating scandal that Catholic countries have submitted to anti-Catholic laws in education, the family, and worship by a minority that says it is defending liberty. The situation has to change, and we hope soon, when the promise of Fatima has been accomplished: “In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph” and “Thy kingdom come” will be accomplished, with the conversion of Russia and the reunification of the Spanish peoples under Christ (“I will reign in Spain”), as a condition for carrying out our evangeli- THE ANGELUS • January 2007 www.angeluspress.org complete rupture with the Church. He forbade Bishop Riera, the consecrated bishop of Portoviejo, to enter into his diocese. The constant persecution forced the number of students in St. Gabriel’s College to be reduced from 400 to 150. Not content with this, a decree was already prepared to expel the Jesuits from the college they had been operating since 1862, and it was one of the few Catholic colleges that remained (this is the usual hellish technique: the best way to de-Catholicize a country is to prevent its youth from receiving a Catholic education and formation). Intervention of the Virgin The Virgin chose the same college dedicated to one of the Archangels: St. Gabriel. The place was the dining hall of the boarding students on the first floor of the college, 72 feet (lessened by a partition to 43 feet) by 23 feet. The picture: a color oleograph (20 inches long by 16 inches wide) of the Sorrowful Heart of Mary (Our Lady of Sorrows with her heart pieced with seven swords), printed in France. The Jesuits had purchased three of these from a traveling salesman, and one of them was placed in the dining hall, on the right side as one enters, six feet from the floor. Between it and the floor was a bench 16 inches high. The picture was one of the many pictures in the College. The time was 8 o’clock at night on April 20th, 1906, Easter Friday. The persons were 35 boarding students 11-17 years old, coming from every region of Ecuador: the Father Prefect (or head of discipline), Andrew Roesch, a Frenchman; the Brother Assistant Supervisor, Louis Alberdi, a Spaniard; and three employees. (The rector of the College was Fr. Andrew Machado of Cuenca, Ecuador, who would later become the Bishop of Guayaquil.) Because it was the Easter vacation, the students had returned that day tired from an excursion. After a short period of study, they were brought for supper to the two large tables of the dining hall that ran parallel to the side walls. Near the end of the meal the Father Prefect arrived and gave the “Deo gratias” (permission to speak, in place of listening to a reading), and told them the news of the terrible earthquake that had occurred on the 18th of the month in San Francisco, California. The students of the College were very familiar with this type of tragedy, as earthquakes are not uncommon in Ecuador. The children were chatting with one another. In front of the picture of Our Lady of Quito there were three eleven-year-old boys, who on Holy Thursday of the previous week had made their First Communion: cal world-wide mission, to which we are called by the unmerited grace and divine predilection, through the mediation of Holy Mary.  An oleograph is a lithograph printed in oil colors to imitate an oil painting.  James Chávez, Charles Herrman, and Peter Donoso. Struck by the news of the devastation in California, Chavéz was saying that he would like to die in an earthquake after receiving Holy Communion. Father Prefect called Donoso to his table. Herrman remained with Chavéz, who was looking at the Virgin, when… But let us ask him himself what happened next. We finished taking coffee, Brother Alberdi came and told us about the earthquake in California, and we began to speak about the Virgin. I said that the seven swords were driven in by our sins. I looked at her, and she was moving her eyelids. I thought that it was my imagination. The other boy looked afterwards and said to me, “Look at the Virgin,” and we kept looking. Seeing what was happening we knelt down; we prayed an Our Father and a Hail Mary. We were looking at what was happening; I called Peter Donoso, saying, “Come and you will see this funny thing.” I called him three times. She [the Virgin] was moving her eyes, the left one and afterwards the right one; the first time she was moving them a little more quickly. After a repetition of two or three times she was closing both.” This was the response of 11-year-old Charles Herrman in the canonical process. Let us also read that of his companion, Chávez: When we finished eating we said, “Deo gratias,” and we were speaking about the Virgin and the Father Prefect called one of the boys to the other table, and two of us remained alone. And then I looked upwards, and I saw that the eyes of the Virgin were beginning to tremble like someone who is in agony, and seeing this I said to the other boy, “Let us pray an Our Father and a Hail Mary,” and we knelt down. Then we sat down again. And looking at what was happening, we informed the others and some of them came. Then we went to get the Father Prefect, but he did not want to come. Afterwards we went to get him again and he came, but he did not want to believe at all. And Brother Alberdi stood in the middle and said, “It is certain,” but he [the Father Prefect] still did not want to believe, until all the boys were repeating at the same time: “Now she opens, now she closes!” After a quarter of an hour the bell rang for us to go to the chapel before the incident ceased. And so it began. In fact, Donoso, who was in the group of the Father Prefect, when his friend Hermann came running to get him, paid no attention to him. The other boy had to invite him three times before he would get up and go: “I went over,” Donoso relates, “and I saw the eyes of the Virgin moving; and I covered my eyes so as not to see, out of fear, and I went another time where Father Roesch.…” Naturally, the priest absolutely did not believe that the Virgin was moving her eyes; nor did he change his mind. How was he going to believe this sort of thing from boys? Brother Alberdi declared in the process: One of the boys from the first tables came to tell us that the Virgin was moving her eyes; and we went closer coldly and with little enthusiasm, as least speaking for myself. Likewise the other boys were stubborn in not believing or going closer, and they delayed for about a quarter of an hour. Many did this, as they later declared: Although we did not believe, and we continued our conversation, since everyone was getting up we went to see out of curiosity. Another testified: Upon receiving the news it made no impression upon me, and I even laughed, but curiosity got the best of me and I got closer to the Virgin. And another relates: When we heard it said that the Virgin was opening and closing her eyes, we went with the intention of making a joke out of what they were saying. Almost all of us did not care about it. I went, but to make fun, and while shoving the others who were coming with me. The Prefect, Fr. Roesch, declared in his turn: With great insistence another boy came to urge me to go and see what was happening. At first I refused what they asked, saying that he should stop the nonsense, because it seemed to me to be an illusion of the boys; but finally, because of the urging and the calling by all those who were witnessing the prodigy, I went over to the table that was located closest to the picture, with the resolution formed of dispelling the notion. I verified with much determination that the electric lights were not moving, or if some beam was reflecting on the image; none of this appeared. Standing in front of the image surrounded by the children, I fixed my eyes on her without blinking, and I observed that the Most Holy Virgin was slowly closing her eyes; but still not believing that I was certain, I left the place. The Brother, who was more certain than I, seeing this, said to me, amazed at what was happening, “But Father, what if this is a miracle? What if this is a miracle?…” I returned again to the spot where I previously was; then I felt a coldness that chilled my body, while seeing, without any possible doubt, that the picture was actually closing and opening its eyes. When this was happening all the children that were watching the prodigy were crying out with one voice, “Now she closes; now she opens; now the left.” But it should be noted that at times she was closing only the left eye or at least more clearly than the right, since it appeared to be more closed. The prodigy repeated itself several times and lasted a little more or less than 15 minutes. It ceased when, seeing that it was already very late for the night prayers, and always fearing to give too much attention, I gave the signal for the students to retire; which they did very much to their regret, since they wanted to kneel and pray. I forbade any noise that would cause a disturbance, since it seemed to me that if the prodigy were miraculous the witnesses would not be lacking to prove it. At first I believed it to be an illusion, and afterwards I was seen going away still without giving credit. Urged again by the Brother, I returned, and the blinking was so evident to me that it gave me the feeling of a chill, and I remain in this conviction. As can be seen, they all were incredulous at the beginning. The first one who said that he saw the miracle, Charles Hermann, did not believe his eyes, for which reason neither did he make any comment to his companion, James Chávez. The latter was the first that told someone else about it. Fr. Roesch not only was incredulous, he feared being influenced by the extraordinary, and, incomprehensibly (it proves his objectivity), he gave the signal to go to the chapel to pray the rosary when www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • January 2007 50th Anniversary196 6 (Left) The entrance of the picture into Riobamba held by the bishop and escorted by St. Gabriel’s students (1956). (Below) The blessing of her crown and the canonical coronation of Our Lady of Quito on the 50th anniversary of the miracle. The seer James Chavez at the 50th anniversary celebrations of the miracle in 1956. He was the first one to notice the movement of the eyes of the picture. the Virgin was continuing to open and close her eyes. And when Brother Herman Alberdi suggested to him: “Let us take the picture of the Virgin to the chapel so that we can pray the rosary in front of her,” he did not consent. Neither did he permit a boy determined to inform the Father Rector to do it. Even more, he told the students not to say anything to anyone. Nevertheless, as soon as they left the dining hall, immediately the news spread throughout the house. Some priests did not refrain from coming to the dining hall, but nothing extraordinary happened. The picture of the Sorrowful Virgin, with her heart transpierced, had the same eyes as always. The phenomenon had ceased, or had it really? The ANGeluS • January 2007 www.angeluspress.org An re wh th of Ri 4, tro th ch sa m sa an as th Em im all th de co Th St on th Co 6  Dr. Camillus Ponce Enríquez, President of the Republic. He was the first conservative candidate elected to the presidency after 64 years of liberal government. He had studied in the College of St. Gabriel for his high school studies and was president of the Republic of Ecuador from 1956-1960. An allegorical picture recounting the attack which occurred on the Jesuit College of St. Philip in Riobamba on May 4, 1897, by Masonic troops resulting in the profanation of the church and sanctuary, sacrilegious mockery of the sacred ornaments and vessels, the assassination of the Father Rector, Emil Moscoso, the imprisonment of all the Jesuits, and the pillage and destruction of the college. The old entrance to St. Gabriel College, on the street behind the Jesuit Church, the Compañia. Verification of the Testimonies What would you have done, dear reader, if you had to pass judgment upon what was being said? Of course, before proving all this, you would need to investigate. How? By interrogating the witnesses, you will say, by examining their credibility, the possibility of fraud, a collective suggestion, an optical illusion… Well, the ecclesiastical authority did this, and with all the rigor of the “devil’s advocate.” Seven days after the event the canonical process began, without the participation of any Jesuits. It appointed a commission of scientists and another of doctors. They would take a thorough declaration from each one of the 40 witnesses under oath. (Considering whom they were dealing with and about what they were dealing with, were the 40 witnesses going to be in agreement about swearing falsely?) At that moment, on April 2, the current Vicar Capitular (the diocese was vacant) ordered that “the aforesaid picture be covered and nothing be disclosed in the press nor from the pulpit relating to this prodigy, as long as its importance and authenticity has not been decided.” This was a prudent temporary prohibition for the miracle to be verified. At the same time, he named the theologians and the scientists who would conduct the investigation. They were strict (meriting later the praises of the Sacred Congregation), but not too slow. They delayed for one month. On the 29th, in the study hall of the boarding students the instruction of the process began. The Vicar Capitular, accompanied by the Secretary of the Chancellery and of the senior Notary, reunited the 40 witnesses and commanded that each one, without communicating with the others, write what it was that he saw in such a way that he would be able to confirm it under oath. On the first of May a canon was commissioned as instructor Judge, assisted by the senior Notary, and on the 5th of May they appeared in person for: 1) the examination of the written statements, 2) their ratification under oath, and 3) to propose to the witnesses a series of questions: if during those days they had heard something about that matter, if there was sufficient light, if at the beginning they were afraid  A “vicar capitular” is the administrator of a vacant diocese. www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • January 2007  and later at peace, and what effect had been produced on him and his conduct. Concerning these statements, all agreed on the reality of the phenomenon, and it seems that at the beginning they were trying not to admit it. Someone went up to the picture, another went up to the partition to see it more closely. There was enough light (the room was illuminated by four light bulbs producing 16 foot-candles each) and the exclamations in unison: “now she opens, now she closes,” lasting for more that a quarter of an hour, leave no room for doubts. “The existence of a marvelous prodigy is evident,” concluded the instructor judge of the process. All also confirmed that the movement of the eyes was always full of majesty, and when opening them her gaze remained steadfast. Once the event had been proved, the commission of scientists, after having sworn to work truthfully and diligently, reconstructed the scene in the same place, at the same hour, with the same circumstances, and examined the picture…about which fact the subscribers will deduce: that the aforesaid phenomenon could not have occurred as the result of the light or other physical conditions in which the picture was located. Moreover the movement of the eyes occurred many times in each instance, as proven by the fact that everyone present observed it at the same time; and its size is such that at the distance of the onlookers a movement of the eyelids could be perceived with no room for doubt; nor could it be an optical illusion because it was seen simultaneously by all. Was there something that remained to be proven? Yes, the mental health of the forty eyewitnesses, which is what the medical commission carried out. From May 17-19, two eminent doctors examined each one separately and by himself. The examinations were lengthy, the result of which was, in brief: that they all possessed good heath without any nervous illness or predisposition towards such phenomena, but it was just the opposite, as far as excluding any influence, no one tried to influence anyone, nor was it admissible that the youngest boys in particular were able to trick all the rest. The only one who would have had the power to do this, by his authority, was the one most hesitant to believe, and he even took the students away from there. After all these preceding events the committee of nine theologians studied in its turn the case and reported favorably. Finally, the Vicar Capitular, mindful of all the above, pronounced the last word. PASTORAL RESOLUTION: 1) The prodigy that took place on April 20 at the College of the Jesuit Fathers is proven to be historically certain. 2) The prodigy, under the circumstances in which it took place, cannot be explained by natural laws. 3) This prodigy, as much on account of what preceded it as by what followed it, cannot be attributed to any diabolical influence. Consequently, one can believe it with a purely human faith, and one may offer the picture which occasioned it the public veneration permitted by the Church, and to pray before it THE ANGELUS • January 2007 www.angeluspress.org with legitimate confidence. Given at the Archiepiscopal Palace on May 31, 1906. The ecclesiastical authority officially authenticated the picture on June 10. On the same May 31, the Vicar Capitular gave an exhortation to the faithful: The occurrence of which we treat has presented itself with so many and such serious motives of rational credibility that although one can decline to believe it without sin, it seems difficult for anyone to reject it without straying from the norms of the most rigorous criteriology. He further commented: It is not possible to pass over in silence certain circumstances. The youths are witnesses to that fact that they begin to live in a world trying to deny the supernatural and at the very time when attempts are increasing to uproot from the hearts of the youth every vestige of the faith. On the other hand the marvelous phenomenon is caused by a simple and pious image of the Sorrowful Virgin, a favorite of Ecuadorians; and especially during times of calamities it appeals to the devotion and the heartfelt sympathy of all the faithful. God has sought to make known what is not useless, but that supplication with which we so many times invoke the Heart of Mary has been heard quite literally: “Turn Thine eyes of mercy towards us.” She has indeed turned them, so tearful and tender; she has shown herself a Mother, because mothers have the secret of communicating with a look, of speaking with their eyes to their children, of teaching them, of encouraging them, of admonishing them, with just a look. Will it be a look of affection or of sad forebodings which Mary has directed to our youth? The Effects of the Miracle The look of our Mother was not of sad forebodings. In the first place, for the seers it was a great spiritual impetus. They themselves declared that they had noticed it in their conduct and piety. Some were not falling asleep when reciting the rosary, others had made the resolution of avoiding sins, and to communicate more frequently. The Father Prefect also noticed it: The effect that was produced upon the children was for the better: they have formed a group or association that aims at combating bad conversations, and they did this spontaneously, and their fervor and good conduct has greatly improved. The very next day, April 22, they made a collection for putting a better frame on the picture. Fervor was not only in those students, but in all their followers, being greatly devoted to the Sorrowful Mother of the College. And overflowing the College, it spread throughout all Quito, through all Ecuador, where her image is found on most of the hearths, and  finally through all the world, especially in England, Ireland, Scotland, Spain, the United States, Colombia, Panama, Australia, Africa….St. Pius X approved the process and requested a copy of the image, which he placed on the desk in his office. It was enough that the Mother of God opened and closed her eyes for the city to have felt itself shaken and the government bewildered. The decree of expulsion of the Jesuits went into the wastebasket. And did the rulers convert? There are some, like the brothers of the rich man, who do not convert even if the dead rise again from the dead, according to Christ’s words. It is the mystery of obstinate hardness of heart, of persistence in sin, and the refusal of grace. The Miracle Is Repeated The Most Holy Virgin wished to respond to the wave of enthusiasm that rose up towards her: 1) On Thursday, June 7, the boarding students and several priests were in the church after supper praying the rosary before the sacred image, and when they finished they once again saw the prodigy. The bell was rung and the whole community gathered. The prodigy lasted for a quarter of an hour. Moreover the picture of the Virgin sometimes displayed profound sadness, and at other times even happiness. On the 11th, declarations were taken in the Archiepiscopal Chancellery from those who saw it. 2) On the 13th, two others say that they have seen it: Doctor Emmanuel María Salazar and his brother Nicholas. The former, who was converted, recounts in his sworn declaration that the face of the image was transformed with expressions of mildness, sweetness and love, and that “what is greater than the movement of the eyes is that she deeply moved my heart.” 3) On Sunday the 24th, at 5:30 in the afternoon the prodigy repeated itself in the presence of Fr. Bernard, Brother Miranda, four students of the College, and five students from the Christian Schools. 4) On the 26th two Dominican priests saw it. 5) On Tuesday, July 3, many people saw the miracle. 6) On July 5, Fr. Alphonsus Laenen, well known and remembered in Manabi, says that he saw the Virgin crying, but he is the only witness who speaks of crying. The Veneration of Our Lady of Quito Veneration of Our Lady of Quito, which is more properly called the Sorrowful Heart of Mary (and so it is entitled within the movement directed to her  Manabi is a western province of Ecuador on the coast. Heart advanced by herself in the last times), began immediately. On Sunday, June 3, a great procession took place, with more than 10,000 participants and some 35,000 spectators. On July 2 the first great Novena of Our Lady of Quito began, which is repeated every year on April 11 so as to finish on the eve of the festive anniversary of the miracle, and has always gone on growing in fervor. Not content with the annual novena, the practice was established, in Quito and in other cities, of celebrating special devotions in honor of Our Lady of Quito on the 20th day of each month. And also in 1932 the Bulletin of Our Lady of Quito was founded, a monthly publication to propagate her devotion. Particularly noteworthy were the honors given to Our Lady of Quito in 1931, the silver anniversary of the miracle which shook the entire nation, and the first Ecuadorian Marian Congress was held. The chronicles of the celebration fill four volumes. In 1934 for the first time the picture went on pilgrimage to Riobamba and other cities, generating unusual enthusiasm and tremendous excitement. The pilgrimages have been repeated. Another pilgrimage was made to Riobamba in 1938, then to Guayaquil, and to the north, to Pasto (Colombia). In 1947 the picture went to Cuenca, where it remained a whole month. In 1956, the golden anniversary of the miracle, there was a Canonical Coronation of Our Lady of Quito. Pope Pius XII in the Brief of the Coronation said: Having consulted the Sacred Congregation of Rites, we grant by our apostolic authority and in virtue of this brief to our beloved son, Carlos María de la Torre, Cardinal Priest of the Holy Church, Archbishop of Quito, that he impose in our name and with our authority, a Crown of gold upon the image of the Most Holy Virgin, the Sorrowful Mother of the College, AS QUEEN OF CATHOLIC EDUCATION IN ECUADOR. Dr. Camillus Ponce Enríquez, President of the Republic, thanked God and Our Lady of Quito for his electoral victory in front of 40 diplomatic delegations. 1958. The relocation of the College of St. Gabriel to a new building was made. With the College the picture of Our Lady of Quito was also moved. 1978. On December 30, the National Shrine of the Sorrowful Mother is blessed and dedicated. 1981. This year marked the diamond anniversary of the miracle. In these 75 years, churches dedicated to our Queen and Mother have been built, such as in Riobamba, Cotacachi, and Ibarra. Colleges and schools have been founded with her name, as in  See the booklet Fatima: El Corazón de María, especially pp. 24 and following.  He was the first conservative candidate elected to the presidency after 64 years of liberal government. He had studied in the College of St. Gabriel for his high school studies and was president of the Republic of Ecuador from 1956-60. www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • January 2007 100th Anniversary2006 The miraculous picture is escorted by the present students of the College of St. Gabriel to be solemnly placed above the main altar of the Compañia, the Jesuit church adjacent to the old College of St. Gabriel where the miracle took place, after having been brought throughout all Ecuador with a procession in each city. 1 2 3 4 5 THE ANGELUS • January 2007 www.angeluspress.org 6 In front of the main altar of the Compañia to which the image has been raised are seated: (1) H.E. Raúl Eduardo Vela Chiriboga, Archbishop; (2) H.E. Néstor Herrera Heredia, President of the Episcopal Conference and Bishop of the diocese of Machala; (3) Dr. Alejandro Serrano Aguilar, vice-president; (4) Wilfrido Lucero, President of the Congress; (5) General Paco Moncayo, mayor of Quito; (6) Ramiro González Jaramillo, governor of the state of Pinchincha. 6 11 Room of the Miracle of the Dolorosa (2006). Loja and Llano Grande. In other cities and parishes, congregations function in her honor, as in Otavalo, to beg for the Ecuadorian children and youth. Once again the miraculous picture is traveling throughout the whole Republic, in towns, hospitals.... The enormous interest and national fervor is impressive. Since the month of February, a program dedicated to the jubilee is broadcast daily by 46 radio transmitters and by television on Saturdays. Novenas, rosaries at dawn, and popular missions in preparation for the arrival of the Virgin take place, which increase the number of confessions and communions, with solemn Masses in the stadiums because the churches become too small. One sign of the national response is the resolution of the Very Illustrious City of Ante. Considering that it is the duty of the City to exteriorize the religious and Marian sentiment of the people that it represents, it is resolved: To render homage of admiration and honor to the Sorrowful Mother of the College on the diamond anniversary of the miracle of the tears shed for the country. To give the keys of the city as a symbol of respect and admiration to the Queen of Heaven. To recommend to all the Christian people, and particularly to the youth, devotion and love to the Sorrowful Mother of the College. To be officially present as a group at the solemn act of her reception. • • • • Favors of Our Lady of Quito Our Mother is she who always gives us good things and who loves us. “God hath first loved us” (I Jn. 4:10), but when we come to her, then she does her utmost, even with miracles. There would be no end in recounting all her gifts and favors: The vast majority we will know only in heaven. We are going to listen to some accounts.  God wishes that His “feats” or extraordinary interventions be told (cf. Is. 12; Ps. 9, 77, 85, 104, 117, 144, etc.), and this is an act of worship. There is no room for doubt that, like a good sermon, it makes an impression upon the faithful; it helps them to be better and to go to God. That “superior” attitude that “disregards” miracles by making them seem related to one’s inadequate education is part of the global strategy of the Prince of this world to hunt down such nuisances: by disparaging all that which is traditional; by “gratifying the ears with novelties”–desecrating and pernicious novelties at that; and by preaching, through his minions, a religion without Confession, or Eucharistic life, or penances, or miracles, which the faithful, consequently, no longer implore from God. www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • January 2007 Fr. Kimball’s Visit2006 Fr. Kimball visited Quito and witnessed this 4am novena procession after a 3am Novus Ordo Mass. For nine days every year the faithful have early morning processions with fireworks through the streets of Quito, singing the rosary and the litany in beautiful old melodies that Father had never heard before. It was beautiful to witness, he reports. The last picture shows the outside of this magnificent church of the Compañia. • In the year 1917, in Ecuador, a young woman, Rose Ponce Ribadeneira was going with a group of people from a ranch named Capelo, in Sangolquí, to Santa Rosa, a property of Mr. Jijón, when the horse on which she was riding slipped and fell to the ground, she remaining tangled in the stirrup. The horse was startled and bolted out of control, dragging along the body of the unfortunate young woman, amidst the screams of terror that the onlookers were making. One of them, Dr. Belisario Ponce, went quickly in pursuit inwardly convinced that he was not going to retrieve anything but the body of his niece in pieces; but what was his surprise when going around a curve, he noticed from afar a black shape rising up from the ground, he recognized that it was his niece and he rushed towards her, who, as though she were insane, was muttering these words: “The Virgin has saved me; at the time I mounted I commended myself to the Sorrowful Mother of the College, and the whole way I was dragged I did not cease to cry out to the Sorrowful Mother. She has saved me.” The horse ran a distance of about 300 yards from the place where it bolted to where the dragging ended, due to the fact that the girth came off and the saddle fell to the ground; and apart from Rose having her face completely covered with dirt and her clothes in tatters, she showed absolutely no sign of the dragging; she had no wounds, not even on her face or her head. • In 1927 a boy, Oswald Romero, was run over by the main part of a wagon full of rocks. When falling he remembered the Mother of Sorrows. That day, after fainting and vomiting blood, he stayed asleep and afterwards was healed without medicine. He later became a priest in the United States. • In England, where she is known under the name of “Our Lady of Quito,” her devotion grew much due to the innumerable favors that she worked during the World War, saving the houses that had her image from the damage produced by the aerial bombardment. Even the Protestants themselves placed an image of the Sorrowful Mother in their houses and churches. Soldiers, marines, and airmen carried with them small pictures so as to feel her maternal protection. Deeds such as the ones we transcribe below repeat themselves at each step. An officer wrote to his wife: I have just narrowly escaped death by a real miracle in North Africa. I was crossing our lines in my car in full battle. I had to travel some two miles on the open highway. A car in these circumstances is a magnificent target for the enemy air force. Indeed, soon after, out of some low clouds four aircraft emerged that immediately began to pursue me. They came flying at a low height behind me. At once I felt engulfed by a rain of artillery fire and machine- 13 gun fire. Suddenly, as the first result of the attack, a howitzer shell pierced the back part of the car, and after tearing my shirtsleeve and grazing my arm just below the shoulder, smashed the windshield and went on to kill a poor man who was trying to take refuge in a hole, about a hundred yards ahead. Another bullet pierced my cap, and a third snatched away from me my binoculars from my back. An artillery shot demolished one of the doors of the car, and finally it went into the ditch, pierced with six shots of artillery and riddled by gunshots; it stayed there like a sieve, but the driver and I were unhurt. Truly God has been good to me. Tell my mother that I was carrying the picture of Our Lady the Sorrowful Mother of Quito in my pocket. • She is also known in Australia, where many hundreds of small pictures of the Sorrowful Mother of Quito have been distributed. There they have felt, just as in Ecuador, the compassionate hand of this Blessed Mother in the multitude of favors, such as the following, which occurred in Melbourne in 1948. A little girl fell from a balcony onto a cement floor. Having been taken to the hospital, her condition became serious. The father and mother of the girl prayed before the image of the Sorrowful Mother of Quito. She heard their prayers and in a short time the girl was completely cured. • And Mr. Ripalda likewise tells of a favor of the Virgin: A contract with the Government of several million sucres obliged me to rent an airplane from Ateca, in order to bring to Quito the commodity that had arrived from Guayaquil. Although it seemed imprudent to me to undertake the flight after six o’clock in the afternoon, because of the insistence of my friends I had to yield. When I crossed the mountains I saw that there was a torrential rain, which disturbed me; but my uneasiness was greater when I was informed in the cabin that the motors were failing and we were in serious danger. In order to save the plane, we thought of throwing the cargo to the ground, but the door did not open. I was thinking about the crash of the plane and about the ensuing death. Amidst the shadows of my distress, I remembered the Sorrowful Mother of the College, to whom with the faith of a child I began to pray the Hail Holy Queen. Shortly after there was a tremendous jolt of the plane followed by groans of sorrow and cries of despair. I did not cease to beg the help of the Virgin, in the midst of the most complete darkness. I looked for the exit door, which gave way easily. This was the first miracle that I attributed to the Sorrowful Mother. But I believe I saw a deep abyss at my feet. Again I began to cry out to the Sorrowful Mother for help and protection. An immense wave entered into the plane, without succeeding to submerge me within it. The plane had plunged into the Guayas River and was sinking slowly. I jumped into the water fully clothed, even wearing my hat. I thought that I was in the sea. A small boat that was providentially passing by the place of the accident saved me. By my directions the other passengers, although injured, were also rescued. The pilot and the manager of Ateca lost their lives. Days later, I thanked the Sorrowful Mother for this favor. Starting today, [he said], I believe in the Catholic religion, I believe in miracles; I would like to do something for the Sorrowful Mother in the material order; I would like above all to be henceforth a practicing Catholic. I promise to confess and receive Communion. • Better known, by the public narrations of the protagonist himself, was the following: On Thursday,  The currency of Ecuador was formerly in sucres. June 5, 1941, the North American Captain Burguess and the Ecuadorian officials Second Lieutenant Dávalos and Lieutenant Louis Arias departed from Esmeraldas for Salinas. This last man, even after very many years, remembered all the details of the tragedy while the students listened with growing emotion: I asked the captain if they had loaded the gasoline. He assured me that even the auxiliary tanks had been filled. With this certainty I began the flight. It was four o’clock in the afternoon; we went into a storm so thick that the ends of the wings could not be seen. The motor started to stall. My fear was realized: there was no gasoline! Beneath my feet was the sea. The plane shook indecisively; it began to descend slowly, irremediably. I hear a hiss, a screech, a bang. We slid open the laminated windows, we took off our clothes, and put on the life jackets. The water was flooding the cabins, and so we had to abandon the plane. I was myself in the depths of the sea, surrounded by sharks and with my companions hanging on me because they do not know how to swim. The captain was driven insane out of terror, and he died at about ten o’clock. Two of us were left, perhaps hoping for the same thing. A splendid day dawned and it enabled me to realize that the coast was within sight. We swam with all our strength. Dávalos began to despair; finally he was silent; then, a gasp…. He was dead! I clung with anxiety to the corpse. No one can imagine how useful the company of a human being is, even if it be a corpse. I continued like this. It was getting dark. I still kept up my morale, but my strength was diminishing. The sharks were hounding ahead threatening the corpse. Very soon a strong tug pulled us down. I could do no more. I let go of the corpse. I swam desperately; I was getting weak. But suddenly, as if to make my agony less painful, the picture of the Sorrowful Mother came to mind, the picture of the Virgin whom I loved so much in the College. And in the midst of the confusion I besought her; I begged God that He not let me perish if I could still serve Him. I thought of my mother, of my brothers, and I turned to that which gives strength to a man: the faith. I found myself finally about 400 yards from the cliff of the coast. The undercurrent was pulling me, and after six hours of efforts, I did not succeed in getting to shore. One gigantic wave that carried me on its crest was going to break upon it. I felt that my feet were touching something; it was a rock. I grabbed on to it and left the water. My body exhausted, mangled, scorched, I did not resist any more: I fell down dismayed. Then another day dawned. A splash of water restored me to my senses, and I despaired. I could do no more. For a moment I was overcome by desperation. I reacted; I looked around and saw a fisherman. I wanted to shout, but my voice would not come out. The fisherman being suspicious was looking at me like a monster or a lunatic: naked, staggering, and desperate. Finally he came near. Another fisherman appeared. I was saved, thanks to the Sorrowful Mother of the College. Now in Quito, my only concern has been to publish the miracle in which the Sorrowful Mother wished to make it evident that we have in her a true Mother. This is the first authorized English translation of La Dolorosa de Quito, Reina del Ecuador (Quito, Ecuador: Libreria Espiritual). Fr. Paul Kimball of Connecticut was ordained in 1989 for the Society of Saint Pius X. After serving at St. Peter’s Priory in Browerville, Minnesota, for some years, he was recently posted to Singapore. Angelus Press is grateful to Father for his determination to spread knowledge of Our Lady of Quito and Garcia Moreno. 14 He said She said M r . D e n n i s M r s . H a m m o n d C o l l e e n H a m m o n d This is another installment of a regular contribution featuring the male and female understandings of real-life situations encountered in the sacrament of matrimony. Sports and Family Sports and the Battlefield of Life Most women can’t understand the attraction men have to sports—but some women want to be right in there playing with (and defeating) the men. What kind of role should sports play in our families’ lives? I grew up in the Title IX era, when team sports became more available—and almost required—for girls to play. I didn’t really want to, but because I was nearly six feet tall I succumbed to peer pressure and joined the basketball and volleyball teams. To offer some balance (or maybe due to the masculine walk I was developing), my father held the THE ANGELUS • January 2007 www.angeluspress.org tennis player Chris Evert up for me as an example. A gifted athlete, Chrissy tried to maintain her femininity on and off the court…especially if you compared her to Martina Navratilova! But what would be considered “feminine”? The definition is under much debate in our society. At least we can all agree that there are physiological differences between men and women, and that men struggle with custody of the eyes issues and women with custody of the lips. For a clue to God-given femininity, I observed our little girls. Among other things, I found them to y 15 be more sympathetic and sensitive than their brothers (not to mention more civilized at the dinner table). The boys were rougher, played war games, and made truck and airplane sounds. Every year our barn cats give birth to a new caboodle of kittens. Inevitably, our girls select the runt of the litter as their favorite and name it Bitty or Baby. The boys? Their favorite will be the biggest and strongest kitten, and they’ll name it Hercules or Hector. “Pulling for the underdog” is just something that we women do. We protect the innocent and the weak. We look for those who need our help—the one least likely to survive in a cold and uncaring world. On the flip side, when I was playing team sports I was taught to look for the weakest link and eradicate it. To play my strength and to attack their vulnerable areas. I remember my last volleyball game. I had a killer spike and picked out the opposing team’s weakest player. When we were both playing at the net, I spiked the ball right into her face—breaking her nose and causing blood to spurt. I rejoiced and high-fived my teammates, but that rejoicing caused something deep inside me to finally crack. I quit. In addition to the indecent garb, being involved in sports eroded my nurturing spirit—the one that makes women compassionate to the losers, the runts, the underdogs. I was trained to go after the “weak link” and get rid of anything that stood between me and winning. I found that attitude had permeated all areas of my life. Could this be part of the reason why women today have little problem eliminating the baby they call “the unplanned pregnancy” that would inconvenience their life? The baby that stands between them and winning their goal? Why they don’t have a problem leaving their children at home to pursue the brass ring? I wonder. But what about boys? In raising Catholic Gentlemen, what role do sports play? The Greeks used competitive sports to prepare their young boys to be warriors in battle, and the same can be said today. In a world ready to chew us up and spit us out, we’re training our boys to be leaders—fathers in the home or at the altar. A sport, played with honor, is how a boy learns to cut the apron strings and be a man. By leaving Mother’s arms and learning to get hit, fall down, and get back up again, they learn that life is tough—and they can be tougher. They are instructed in manliness. They learn that their passions are to be subordinated. They learn to deal properly with success and failure. But isn’t that something we all need to learn? Sure, but boys especially must learn to have mastery over their bodies. Why? Because as testosterone begins to surge through a young man’s veins, Sixth and Ninth Commandment issues will blossom. Wouldn’t we rather they learn to channel that male aggression into sports instead of talking back, bullying, or getting into worse mischief? Enduring physical hardships is something that a boy must practice early. They must train their reason to triumph over physical exhaustion and pain. They must become proficient at using their body as a tool for their mind—to do the work of the spirit, and not the “deeds of the flesh.” That’s why I try to be vigilant about not feminizing my boys—especially as a homeschooling mother. Boys need to fall, break bones, and bleed. I’m pretty sure that mothers are responsible for all the padding used in football! Seeing my sons get battered and lose blood is nearly impossible for me, but at least it gives me a better appreciation of what our Blessed Mother went through watching her Son suffer through the Passion! So I’ve learned to offer a bit of sympathy and concern, then let my husband handle it. It’s been very difficult, and I still find it hard not to want to coddle our boys. By the time they’re pre-adolescent, our young men will shrug off our concern, push us away, and say, “Aw, Mom. I’m all right!” as their arm dangles at an unnatural angle from their body. If they don’t, maybe we’ve pampered them too much! A bit of blood and a broken bone is their initiation into manhood. I really don’t understand it, but I respect it as a necessary stage in their development for the Church Militant. But the camaraderie men develop on the field as boys can also lead to making sports a god. Instead of learning from sports as a young man and moving into the battlefield of life, many men’s “daily meditation” is on the sports page. They would rather live life vicariously through their sports teams— reliving their “glory days” but letting the athletes take all the hits and get all the bruises. Yet where men are needed most is on the gridiron of life. Praying outside an abortion mill. Fighting to “win” their families, neighbors, and friends to the Truth. Sweating out the salvation of their families and themselves. Competitive sports in youth can make men out of our boys. But following the sports teams (or continuing in an inordinate amount of competitive sports as an adult) makes little boys out of our men. So where is the balance? Honestly, I think Dennis struggles with this more than I do. As a former college athlete, he was raised with sports as a god. We don’t have television, but he sure knows the standings! In our family, we use sports as a means of health and exercise. And now that I better understand the importance of competitive team sports for our boys, we’re looking for a good league to have them join. They’re hard to find. www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • January 2007 16 Since physical fitness is an important part of a proper education—for boys and for girls—we recreate together as a family. We take family bike rides. We arrange long hikes. And I’m not surprised when a family game of tag soon turns into tackle football with Dennis and our boys! If the blood flows, I suppress the urge to fuss, and rejoice that our son is learning to become a soldier for Christ. It’s all part of their spiritual training for the battlefield of life. Salvation in the I-Formation The body should be trained to be able to obey the counsel of wisdom and reason, whether it be a matter of work to be done or trials to be borne.–Cicero As winter’s long shadows are upon us, it is a time when we largely take to the inside. The outdoor, physical activity of warmer days gives way to more sedentary pursuits and we dive into indoor projects. Many in our culture eschew the projects and while away many hours with remote in one hand and cool drink in the other, feet propped up, eyes affixed on the sporting offerings of the airwaves. That pop culture phenomenon known as the Super Bowl fast approaches. At some point in our recent history, we became spectators instead of active players. We have given a prominent place to watching sports and the mindnumbing drivel of the latest and greatest advertising hooks of the corporate world. Hey, it’s much easier to watch football than to actually go out and play it! But is it really more edifying to God to sit slackjawed in rapt attention as Third and Eight plays out, or to go outside and throw the football around with your sons? Winter is a banquet table of NFL and college football, hockey, pro and college basketball and countless other dishes for our consumption. Anyone who has played any kind of sport understands the exhilaration of competition. The gut feel of pitting your skills and heart against an opponent is something that is very difficult to duplicate, unless you’re engaged in real battle. We can fully appreciate what it takes for the athletes on TV to be successful, to be winners. We can project ourselves into the action. And that is both the allure and accompanying potential trap. Athletics and physical activity go to the very core of man, as we are physical in nature. We are born to protect and provide. This requires bodily toughness and the ability to endure hardship and challenge. It is no doubt one reason that men are drawn to sport. Sport prepares us for war and defending what ought to be defended. THE ANGELUS • January 2007 www.angeluspress.org “Go, girl.” The ancient Greeks developed sporting events and the Olympics as a training device for soldiers to keep them strong, in shape, and maintain their edge. Modern militaries subject their troops to all kinds of rigorous physical training. Countless weekend warriors run 10K’s and pull hamstrings playing softball with their work buddies. The more hardy souls might try a Triathalon or even dare to scale Everest. But why do we do it? Is it to gain more control of mind over body? Is it to better ourselves in God’s eyes, or for more humanistic reasons? Maybe it’s just to say “I did it.” Or it could be for what the Greeks called kleos —glory and reputation. What will people say about me ? What is the real purpose of sport? How do we keep it in perspective and give it proper place and scope for ourselves and our families? We have grown (or descended!) into a society that values someone who can nail a jump shot or catch a football more than we value teachers, firemen, or our priests. Our pseudo heroes tend to be uneducated, selfish, and all 17 “Contra hostes tuos.” too often unworthy of accolades, while the real heroes toil in obscurity. Teaching our sons to test their mettle physically and to learn to push their body’s limits is extremely important. It gives them the grace and ability to control and subordinate their will. How many times have we heard that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak? Probably less often than we have actually experienced it! Sixth and Ninth Commandment issues ( i.e., custody of the eyes) is a man’s cross to bear. Athletics can help young men strengthen control of the flesh and be in command over the body. Enduring the rigors of sport gives us confidence that we can overcome hardships. We can fast and mortify ourselves. We can take on tribulations of both body and mind. And our soul strengthens as a result. But athletic endeavors have to be kept in perspective. They have to be a means to sanctification, not a be all and end all. And the benefit is in the active participation in the skirmish of life, not sitting by and passively watching. One of the benefits of team sports is the need to subject or subordinate our individual desires and goals to a bigger, broader goal. The success of the team has brought the somewhat trite phrase, “I’m just trying to help the team.” It may be trite but it is noble and it is a great lesson to be learned. Men and boys come together from different upbringings and with different skills to work toward a common goal. Their individual strengths are blended together to produce a sum greater than the individual parts. Sacrifice is required, and it teaches one of life’s great lessons. There is something bigger than me out there. It’s not about me, it’s about a greater common good. Baseball has the sacrifice. Basketball and hockey have the assist where a skillful play results in a teammate scoring and the team benefits. Every championship football team has the unsung heroes throwing blocks and controlling the line of scrimmage in selfless and thankless effort while someone else scores the touchdown. This builds camaraderie and trust as those scoring know why they did. And when you have scored due to someone else’s efforts, your unselfish acknowledgement of them further strengthens the bond. This is a lesson that carries over to family, the Faith, even to work situations. It’s a validation for selflessness and putting others before ourselves to accomplish goals that we can’t do by ourselves. It is often said that it is amazing what can be accomplished when nobody cares who gets credit. And it is dead on! This is, of course, the way it is supposed to be. Growth in virtue through sport is the goal. But our culture has turned to sport as the mountain top. Virtues have been brushed aside in favor of selfishness, greed, and win-at-all-costs chest thumping. Overbearing dads (and moms) complain that little Johnny isn’t getting enough playing time and his future scholarship and millions are in jeopardy as a result. And Johnny is only a seventh grader! Last year in Texas, a disgruntled dad brought a gun to a football practice and threatened the coach over his son’s playing time. In an everyone-plays-inevery-game little league baseball game last summer, a coach during warm-ups had his pitcher deliberately bean (throw at the head) a member of his own team. The boy that was hit by the pitch was a physically disabled boy, who, as it came out later, would hurt their chances to win. So they reasoned, “hit him in the head and he can’t play and won’t hold us back.” And it was the coach that put the player up to harming his own teammate. Unbelievable. These are only two, unfortunately, of many examples. Clearly we must tread lightly in the sports and athletic realm with our children. We will be exposed to influences that are not always virtuous and to people who will lie, cheat, and steal to win. But it is also an opportunity to be the coach, overcome these www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • January 2007 18 challenges, and set the proper example for others. Sure it will take time, and we have all of Eternity to celebrate the rewards it will bring. An important aspect of sports is that many times we are “outgunned” or against someone who is simply better than us. Or they were for that play. We get knocked down, we strike out, or are bested for a play or maybe a game. What do we do? Wallow and quit? Or do we get up and learn from what happened and try again? We make adjustments. We look in the mirror and objectively assess where we are lacking and diligently work to correct and improve. This should sound very much like the journey to sanctity. We need to assess where we are on the road to holiness and correct the course. True, sports are manufactured and not hugely important in the grand scheme, but if we learn self-awareness, humility, and how to better ourselves from them, we have gained a tremendous advantage. Apply what you learn. Forget the last play, mistake, or failure, and be better the next time. Men generally have a natural make up or composition to give their all between the lines and leave it there. If someone takes a cheap shot or does something outside the rules, we remember it and if in the course of action we can rectify it, we will. And it ends there. Things are evened, then forgotten and play continues. We likely will even share a beer and laugh about it later. Having coached women’s high school basketball, I saw first hand that this was different with women. They couldn’t–or wouldn’t–let it go. They carried a grudge that festered and grew. Resentment and hard feelings lasted long after a particular game. The first time I experienced this was on a bus ride to a rematch with an arch rival. I overheard several young women talking about specific plans of retaliation against a specific opponent from our previous game. When I suggested that they should be more focused on tactics to defend opposing players and what to do to win, they were dumbfounded. Revenge was on their minds, not true competitive spirit. It was a wake up call for me about the difference between men and women, especially when it comes to sports and competition. Don’t get me wrong, exercise and physical fitness are as important for women as for men. But how do competitive sports fit in? Any man who has seen his wife give birth would be an idiot to question her mental and physical toughness. We as men should be so lucky to be this strong! But the grace from God that gives women this capacity also gives them the nurturing heart and sensitive soul to raise children, put up with their husband’s faults, build a home, and help pull and keep things together. Women are caring and pull for the underdog. They reach out and help the weak, those who can’t help themselves. In competitive sports, the way to victory is to find and attack weakness. To hone in on the weak link and exploit it. To attack the weak, not THE ANGELUS • January 2007 www.angeluspress.org help them. How can it not be confusing at some level for a woman or girl? How can it not compromise a nurturing, caring nature? And let’s face it: the height of feminine beauty is not a girl or woman with a manly swagger in a sweaty uniform, face grimacing, and elbows flying in the midst of battle! These are my observations from many years of sports involvement, so ladies, please hold the hate mail. Be wary of competitive athletics, but not of exercise and activity. In his book The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity, Dr. Leon Podles contributes his view on sports: Agonistic masculine play was the origin of civilization. In the modern world, sports are the emotional center of countless men. Sports are a traditional means to attain masculinity....Because sports provide an initiation into masculinity, they can easily become a religion. Sports are often the way the boy puts away the soft, sheltering world of the mother and her femininity and enters the world of challenge and danger that makes him a man....Team sports develop masculinity; they are “the civilized substitute for war” and sublimate male aggression into channels less harmful than crime....Sport forms character, manly straightforward character, a scorn of lying and meanness, habits of obedience and command, and fearless courage. Competitive sports can build masculinity in our boys and men. It is in many ways the last acceptable bastion of masculinity. From a father’s perspective, this is needed for my sons but not my daughters. Athletic competition and testing our physical limits prepare us for mental and physical challenges that will inevitably lie in our path. Subordination to a larger goal and mortification of our physical being are lessons and experiences that tragically few in our modern culture understand. Sports and athletics kept in proper perspective can teach us these lessons. Parents must be prudent and vigilant. To dismiss sports and keep our sons away because of the abuses of modern culture wipes out the potential for valuable experience. However, we cannot get sucked into the win-at-all-costs attitudes so prevalent today. Get off the sofa and get active. Start small and work at it. Get out in the yard and throw that football around. Get involved. Volunteer to coach so that you can help instill the right lessons and attitudes. Physical fitness goes hand in glove with spiritual and mental fitness. “So run that you might win!” (I Cor. 9:24). Mr. and Mrs. Dennis Hammond are the parents of four children, the eldest just having entered high school. Dennis is a freelance writer, part-time public speaker, and works in Executive Marketing for IBM. Colleen is the author of the best-selling book Dressing with Dignity. A former on-camera meteorologist for The Weather Channel, model, actress, and Miss Michigan National Teenager, Colleen abandoned her career in television to become a stay-at-home mother (www.ColleenHammond.com). The family lives on ten acres outside Fort Worth, Texas, and assists at the Latin Mass. The picture of the softball pitcher is from an unidentifiable source; the other two are from the archives of Notre Dame de La Salette Boys Academy, Olivet, Illinois, courtesy of Peter Bourbeau. si si no no The Angelus English-Language Article Reprint Let your speech be, “Yes, yes,” “No, no”; whatever is beyond these comes from the evil one. (Mt. 5:37)  January 2007 Reprint #73 “My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me....He that speaketh of himself, seeketh his own glory: but he that seeketh the glory of him that sent him, he is true, and there is no injustice in him” ( Jn. 7:16, 18). Behold the sublime synthesis of the person of the divine Word: He has received everything from the Father, and He communicates what He has received. St. Augustine writes: For He says not, This doctrine is not mine; but, “My doctrine is not mine.” If not Thine, how Thine? If Thine, how not Thine?...If we carefully look at what the holy evangelist himself says in the beginning of his Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”; thence hangs the solution of this question. What then is the doctrine of the Father, but the Father’s Word? Therefore, Christ Himself is the doctrine of the Father, if He is the Word of the Father. But since the Word cannot be of none, but of some one, He said both “His doctrine,” namely, Himself, and also, “not His own,” because He is the Word of the Father. For what is so much “Thine” as Thyself? And what so much not Thine as Thyself, if that Thou art is of another? As a true disciple of Jesus Christ, St. Paul also glories in possessing nothing and in handing down nothing but that which he himself has received: “For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you...” (I Cor. 11:23). And the same should be true of every true pastor of the Church, and even of every true Christian: to glory in transmitting nothing but what he has received from the constant teaching of the Church;  In Joan., Tractate XXIX [English version from the Catholic Classics Ethereal Library: www.ccel.org/ ccel/schaff/ npnf107.txt]. The Good Shepherd, the Wolves, and the Mercenaries Marini Daneels Ruini Sodano 19 THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT And then, hear ye! Hear ye! Marini confides a detail to his interviewer: I want to tell you an anecdote. A few years ago, [some Lefebvrists] came to see me and I received them. One of them spoke up and said: “Excellency, the new rite is a heresy.” “Why,” I asked. “Because,” the Lefebvrist replied, “in the old rite the celebrant genuflected, he adored the host, he rose, he showed it to the people, then he genuflected again to adore it.” “Ah,” I said, “so then...” “So then it is a heresy because by not genuflecting until after the elevation the celebrant is in reality asking the consent of the faithful before proceeding to the consecration.” What did I do? Really, now; we simply wanted to suppress a duplicate, and he speaks to me of heresy! “Here, take my telephone number,” I told him, “call me when you need to.” to invent nothing, to change nothing, but to rejoice in receiving everything and in handing it on. Such is the voice of the good Shepherd; such must be the voice of the true pastors. It is up to you, dear readers, to judge whether, in the voices of the pastors below, the voice of Christ can be recognized, or else the growl of the wolf in sheep’s clothing. The Spirit of the Liturgy? Msgr. Marini, on the occasion of presenting to the Catholic University of Milan his latest book, Liturgy and Beauty (Nobilis Pulchritudo): Memoirs of a Lived Experience in the Liturgical Celebrations of the Holy Father, granted an interview to the online daily Affari Italiani of March 20, 2006. To the question “What do you think of the Lefebvrists,” Marini, reacting like someone bitten by a tarantula, replied: “Let it be clear once and for all: they must accept what Vatican II has decided or else no reconciliation will be possible.” Perhaps someone should let Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos know that obviously the Holy Father must have replaced him by Msgr. Marini...; or else, given the peremptory nature of his reply, the Pope himself must fear being supplanted by this same monsignor. Here is the rest of his answer: What do these people want? The majority of the faithful have adjusted; without the new rite, which was not an offspring of the Curia but a work of international inspiration, the celebrations and trips abroad of Pope Wojtyla would have been impossible. So why don’t they adapt; what’s the difference? “These people,” as Msgr. Marini calls them, in addition to the fact that his answer makes no mention of the significant opposition that the liturgical reform quickly encountered, and not only among the “Lefebvrists,” would also like to point out that at the time of Arius, too, the majority of the faithful had adapted... But perhaps it is too much to expect Archbishop Marini to adopt as a criterion something more profound than mere consensus. After all, he is a liturgist, not a theologian! But some legitimate doubts could be raised about his liturgical competence too, since to prove the goodness of the new rite he can find nothing better to say than that it enabled Pope Wojtyla to travel all over the world. With all due respect, this does not seem very convincing to us. If Pope Ratzinger is a little more sedentary than his predecessor, will it be necessary to create a rite ad hoc for him too? What conclusions can we draw from Marini’s Hemingwayesque tale? First of all, he evidently desires to portray all these “Lefebvrists”–as he calls them–as a mass of imbeciles who must be affected by mental problems since they reduce the liturgical reform to a simple question of genuflection. Second, Marini’s reply to this “Lefebvrist” confirms our suspicion about his liturgical competence and his ignorance of the spiritual life. The liturgy is made up of signs, gestures. Now, it is clear, even to a child, that it is the repetition of these gestures that forms interior dispositions. Thus the Church, like a good mother, has established that the gesture that expresses more than any other reverence, adoration, the awe of the creature in the presence of its Creator, of the vassal before his Lord, is genuflection. As soon as the words of consecration are pronounced, the genuflection unequivocally expresses that at that precise moment the God-Man is there, present on the altar in the state of Victim offered to the Father for our redemption. An instant before He was not present in this manner, and it is only by the power of the sacerdotal mediation that this was made possible. Msgr. Gaume well described this solemn moment: “‘This is my Body.’ The miracle is accomplished. The priest falls to his knee, the acolytes bow, and the bell, that noble messenger of the Church militant, calls the faithful to adore.” After the elevation of the consecrated host, the same gesture is repeated, and will be repeated for the consecration of the chalice. To state that the criterion that led to the suppression of this genuflection (like many others) was “the suppression of a duplicate” is tantamount to confusing the liturgy with a mathematical proof. What would Msgr. Marini do if he were charged with the reform of the holy Rosary, since this prayer is nothing but the repetition of the same prayers and the proposition of the same mysteries? He would  Archbishop Piero Marini (b. 1942), Titular Archbishop of Martirano and Master of Pontifical Ceremonies. He was the personal secretary of Archbishop Anibale Bugnini. He has been the master of papal liturgical celebrations since 1987.–Ed. 20  G. Gaume, Catéchisme de persévérance, Part IV, Lesson 21 (Milan, 1860), Vol. 7, p.286. THE ANGELUS • January 2007 www.angeluspress.org probably just eliminate it; then he would grant an interview and tell the Blessed Virgin Mary that she has no grounds for complaint since it was just a matter of suppressing duplications; finally...he would leave her his telephone number, saying “Call me when you need to!” Dom Guéranger wrote: According to the enlightened judgment of pious and knowledgeable priests who use the Roman rite, a hidden unction is concealed within this liturgy that one will look for in vain in the other improvised liturgies of our day. Who cares about the superficial judgment of those who, in practice not knowing anything except the modern liturgies, should wish to give their opinions about the Roman books that they have simply perused or even critically examined....More than intellectual acuity is required to weigh in on this subject.4 It is neither erudition nor an analytical mind that makes it possible to savor and to comprehend the liturgy, but rather a genuine piety exempt from worldly taint, a spirit steeped in tradition, a profound love, and a sincere fidelity to the Church. Marini himself proves how far he is from having this spirit when he says: priests reasoned that way: has he perhaps the gift of reading minds?), but out of reverence towards God. Such is the spirit in which the Church established the rubrics and requires that they be followed precisely; that is the virtue of religion, of which St. Thomas Aquinas spoke, a virtue that pushes one “to do certain things out of reverence towards God.”5 And submission out of reverence towards God gives the merit of obedience, assures true devotion, helps the priest and the faithful to a state of recollection and respect, and impresses upon the soul the best interior dispositions. To the contrary, creativity deprives the soul of all these benefits and favors the spirit of independence, son of pride, generator of disobedience and anarchy, as the facts amply show. How much longer must the ears of the faithful support such foolishness? How much longer will the blind lead the blind? Decidedly, what we have heard is not the voice of the good Shepherd, but the voice of “one who speaks of himself or seeks his own glory”; the good Shepherd, to the contrary, takes pleasure in repeating: “My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.” We then had a long-term objective in mind that we wanted to reach–the complete reform of the liturgy. We worked in the optic of renewal and return to the Church of the Fathers, suppressing the incrustation of time from the Roman liturgy. Whoever acts with the intellectualist perspective of completely reforming the liturgy whatever the cost; whoever works in an archaeological optic, forgetting that between the “golden” era of the Fathers and the present lie 1500 years during which the Holy Spirit led His Church; whoever dares depreciate this work of the Divine Spirit, labeling “incrustation of time” what actually was, on the contrary, a marvelous development, without discontinuity or rupture, of the prayer of the Spouse; such a one is not worthy of the name Catholic, still less that of member of the pontifical household. In the rest of the interview, Marini does not cease to show that he is a total stranger to the spirit of the Church: The enthusiasm has certainly degenerated somewhat.... But I fear the return to neo-ritualism, that is to say, to the priest who celebrates the Mass with the thought that, Well, I’ve said my Mass by following the rite to the letter, so all is well. But all is not well; celebration does not mean a mere servile respect for liturgical norms; there is always a little space for the celebrant. No, dear Monsignor! The Mass is not space for the celebrant, nor for the People of God, nor for whomever! The Mass is the unbloody immolation of Jesus Christ: that is why the priest must disappear behind the liturgical rubrics, not out of formalism, of course (how can Marini say that previously all the 4 L’esprit de la liturgie catholique (Ed. Servir, 2000), p.87. www.angeluspress.org The ANGeluS • January 2007 THE HEART OF THE MASS Learn to bring something to Mass–Understanding. Dissects the Mass into its component parts, prayer by prayer with Latin & parallel English. Explanations from the Fathers and Doctors, revelations to Saints, teachings of the Church, history and mystic commentary. Tells you what the celebrant and ministers are doing, the symbolism of their gestures, and the spiritual significance of articles used for celebrating Mass. 166pp, softcover, STK# 6711✱ $12.95 Shakespearean Shenanigans While Msgr. Marini pontificates...Cardinal Sodano acts. On February 19, Cardinal Camillo Ruini turned 75; according to regulations, he had to submit to the Pope his letter of resignation, which the Holy Father can decide to accept or not. Moreover, a few days later, March 6, his mandate as president of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI) expired. At the end of Ruini’s preceding mandates as president of the Italian Episcopal Conference (1991, 1996, 2001), John Paul II sought the advice of the 5 Summa Theologica, II, II, Q.81, art. 2. THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT 21 THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT the pope and to his desire to decide “more collegially” on a replacement for Ruini. And in fact, on the morning of February 14, as soon as he saw the complete text of the letter published in two newspapers, a very irritated Benedict XVI picked up the telephone and ordered that his confirmation of Ruini as president of the CEI be made public immediately. The pope’s order was so peremptory that the Vatican press office released the news before any of the other communications of the day. By confirming Ruini, the pope invalidated the letter of Romeo, alias Sodano, which had pegged Ruini as a hasbeen. presidents of the regions into which the Italian episcopacy is divided. “But this time,” writes Sandro Magister, in his newsletter of March 2, 2006, rather than the pope, the secretariat of state extended the consultation to all of the 226 bishops in office. To each one, the nuncio in Italy Paolo Romeo sent a letter under the seal of pontifical secrecy, asking the recipient to “indicate...the prelate that you would like to suggest.” Here is the complete text of the letter sent to the Italian bishops without the Pope’s knowledge: Most Reverend Excellency, As you know, next March 6 the mandate of the Most Eminent Cardinal Camillo Ruini as president of the CEI will come to a conclusion. The Holy Father, who has always appreciated very much the service rendered by the Most Eminent Cardinal to the Italian Church, thinks nonetheless that, in part because of his upcoming seventy-fifth birthday, a change in the office of the presidency is in order. To this end it is my duty and privilege to address Your Excellency, asking you to indicate to me, coram Domino and with courteous solicitude, the Prelate that you intend to suggest for the aforementioned office. This consultation, in consideration of its importance and delicacy, is subject to the pontifical seal of secrecy, which requires the utmost caution with all persons. Finally, I would ask you to return this letter together with your response, without keeping copies of anything. Until then, I warmly thank you for the help that you, through the agency of this Apostolic Nunciature, shall desire to give the Successor of Peter in such an important and delicate matter. Paolo Romeo, Apostolic Nuncio Rome, January 26, 2006 But why the hush-hush “C.I.A.” approach to express a simple preference? The answer is simple: neither the Pope nor Ruini knew anything about Cardinal Sodano’s initiative! Magister reports: The letter bears the date of January 26, and the only one to whom it was not sent was Ruini. But he was immediately made aware of it. And Benedict XVI was also informed, and discovered that it said the opposite of what he was planning to do. On February 6, the nuncio who signed the letter, Romeo, was called by Benedict XVI for an audience. The pope asked him how and why this initiative came about. Romeo left the audience in shambles, but Sodano was the one who was really trembling. On February 9, Benedict XVI received Ruini together with his right hand man, the secretary general of the CEI, bishop Giuseppe Betori. They both received the pope’s reassurances. News of the letter had not yet leaked to the outside. But a few days later, the news agencies and news­papers were writing about it, attributing the idea for the letter to  22 Online at www.chiesa.espressonline.it/printDettaglio.jsp?id=46410&eng=y. Had Shakespeare known of the affair, he wouldn’t have hesitated to rebaptize his most famous work Romeo and ...Sodano! Pleasantries aside, the deed is serious: the Cardinal Secretary of State circulated a misleading letter with the intention of “ridding himself” of an Eminence and of making a fool of the Pope. Can this mendacious voice be the voice of the Good Shepherd? But more than a wolf, Sodano appears to be a mercenary. Indeed, we learn in Il Foglio of March 15, 2006, of the involvement of a nephew (Andrea) of Cardinal Secretary of State Sodano in the affairs of a real estate development company, the Follieri Group, which is doing business worth hundreds of millions of dollars with American dioceses and religious orders.... The news was reported in the National Catholic Reporter on March 3, 2006, and by Adista on March 11, 2006. We also happened to read in the archives of the Erre News that the lawyer Pasquale Follieri, president of the group of the same name for which the engineer Andrea Sodano was named vice president, was the object of an inquiry (since dismissed by the judge for preliminary hearings of the Foggia court) for violating the Anselmi Law on secret societies. It seems, moreover, that just three years before the Follieris were experiencing serious economic problems until the General Gianalfonso d’Avossa, investigated for ties to the Russian Mafia and for other “trifles” of this sort, “introduced the Follieris to Sodano, who would have put them in touch, fairly recently, then, with his nephew Andrea, head of a big civil engineering firm at Asti. Whence the vice-presidency of the Follieri Group given to the nephew of Cardinal Sodano. Whence also, probably, with Vatican letters of credit of this level, the rapid rise of the Group in the American real estate market” (Adista, March 11, 2006). A group which–as if by chance–focuses on the acquisition of properties of dioceses and religious orders in the US. What is there to say? After Marini’s Hemingwayesque tale and the story of “Romeo and Sodano” worthy of  It seems that equally implicated in this business is Msgr. Tomececk, currently residing in a Philadelphia parish, who was personally called upon to work with the Follieri Group by Pope John Paul II’s secretary, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz. THE ANGELUS • January 2007 www.angeluspress.org Shakespeare, we have a a detective story plot à la Agatha Christie! Dubious Distinctions, Doubtful Doctrines Cardinal Godfried Danneels, Archbishop of Brussels and president of the Belgian Episcopal Conference, granted an interview to the national daily newspaper La Dernière Heure/Les Sports (/www. dhnet.be) of March 9, 2006. Well, evidently, when Danneels opens his mouth to speak, it would be better for the faithful to close their ears. To the question “Is it possible to consider the marriage of priests?” the Cardinal gives a reply “worthy” of a treatise on the metaphysical basis of canon law: “Its prohibition flows from what is called a ‘positive’ law of the Church, which means that it can be changed.” A curious equivalence made by His Eminence: a positive law = a law that can be changed, that is to say, pure jurispositivism! It is futile to search the interview granted by Danneels for the reason why the Church laid down this law. On the contrary, the Cardinal has nothing better to say than “Is celibacy an outmoded concept? Well, the future will tell us. We shall see if they get back to it, but I do not believe so.” And he winds up the discussion: “The greatest obstacle for a priest is not celibacy, but the difficulty of giving one’s life for invisible causes.” What can these invisible causes be? Is Cardinal Danneels speaking about extraterrestrials or phantoms? And besides, you know, it makes a bad impression to name Jesus Christ in the columns of a secular daily... Although we are already used to the “sorties” of Cardinal Danneels, we cannot fail to be staggered to observe that the idea of a normative Tradition should be completely absent from a Cardinal’s thinking. From the beginning, in fact, despite the pressures which arise often within the Church itself, the Church has never called in question the foundation nor the applications of the law of celibacy, and it has never allowed the discipline to be relaxed on the essential points; it has never tolerated marriage after the reception of major orders; to candidates already married, it has forbidden the continuation of conjugal life after ordination. Through the centuries, the discipline became more severe: the nullity of marriage contracted by clerics having received major orders was proclaimed, and the ordination of married men fell more and more out of favor. It was considered that these ordinations created an ambiguity, that they did not favor the appreciation of celibacy, endangering the conviction of the close affinity between the vocation to the priesthood and the vocation to virginity. Now, if the Church, guided by the Holy Ghost, has always maintained this direction, it certainly  A. M. Stickler, “Evolution de la discipline du célibat dans l’Eglise d’Occident de la fin de l’âge patristique au Concile de Trente,” in AA. VV., Sacerdoce et célibat (Milan, 1975), p.598. www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • January 2007 has not done so on a whim, nor from contempt of marriage, nor for any other fleeting or futile reason. It has wanted to manifest the “close affinity” that exists between the priest, who is the man of the altar and of sacrifice, and celibacy, which disposes the soul to that which is like its seal. If, at the beginning, the discipline was not as rigorous as today, that is because these convictions still had to mature, not in the Church, but in the candidates for the priesthood. Thus it is not possible to go back, since the law of priestly celibacy is not a transitory element nor is it subject to free will, which could, as the Cardinal says, “be changed.” On the contrary, it is the ripe fruit that manifests the “physiognomy” of the Catholic priesthood. Another hot topic: “And the priesthood of women?” Once again, the Cardinal gives a free interpretation of the laws of the Church: “People always say that the Catholic Church does not want women to become priests. That is not exact. The Church has said that it does not feel itself to be authorized to do it since Jesus only chose men for His Apostles. That said, I think that it is necessary to grant high responsibilities to women in the Church. From this perspective, there is a need to make up for lost time.” In other words, it is not the Church’s fault, but Jesus Christ’s. The Church, if it could, would grant the priesthood to women right away. But since things are this way, at least they will arrange things so that women have “high responsibilities” (?) in the Church! And yet St. Thomas explains very well that women cannot receive sacerdotal ordination because the priesthood requires not only the res, but also what it signifies. He gives an example: just as for extreme unction it is necessary that the person who receives it be sick in such a way as to manifest the signification of healing (of the soul and often of the body, too) of this sacrament, so the one who is ordained receives the power to act in persona Christi. His person thus must indicate Christ Himself, who was a man and not a woman. Moreover, explains St. Thomas, the ordination of a woman is not possible in the measure that the latter is called to be subject to the man, while the priesthood must on the contrary also manifest the power and the authority of Christ. And it is for this last reason that the woman cannot be part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy; she can, however, lend her aid, not only by prayer and sacrifice, but also by her precious and laborious collaboration. But the spectacle given by Danneels really takes off when the interviewer asks him, “Are you for or  Cf. Super IV Libros Sententiarum, IV, d. 25, q. 1, a. 2. THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT 23 THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT against the use of the condom?” Answer: “First of all, the Pope has never employed the term condom–still less to condemn it–in any of his speeches. As for me, I do not say that the use of the condom is acceptable. But if for example a man infected with AIDS obliges his wife to have conjugal relations, she must be able to oblige him to use a condom. Otherwise, another sin is added, that of homicide. I have always said it: the condom, insofar as it allows the protection of life, does not belong to the purely sexual domain.” First of all, what can he mean by the statement “the Pope has never employed the term condom–still less to condemn it”? The Church has exposed in detail its thinking, generically as regards the onanist use of marriage and specifically as regards contraception. And the use of the condom would not fall into this category? It is unworthy to try to evade the Church’s systematic prohibition in this matter by playing with words! It is equally unworthy to try by using “tear-jerking” examples to justify the unjustifiable. Indeed, in the situation envisaged by the Cardinal, the woman would commit a grave sin insofar as recourse to the condom is an intrinsically evil act. The Church has declared itself clearly on this point.10 Consequently, in the case where a sick man would oblige his wife to have marital relations while making use of a condom, she would be obliged to resist him as one resists a rapist,11 even at the risk of her own life, precisely because the usage of these means is inherently gravely sinful. The “advice” given by the Cardinal would perhaps allow the woman to save her life (if indeed the condom is really effective against the transmission of the HIV virus), but certainly not her soul. Good counsel from a “good Shepherd”! The Cardinal’s folly is given full rein when it comes to the marriage of homosexuals: “In my opinion, the heart of the debate is elsewhere. I can accept that civil legislation determine the conditions of cohabitation and the rights of homosexual couples, but I cannot agree to call that marriage.” He concludes: “It is normal that civil legislation–which I respect–not be totally in conformity with my ethical judgment.” Once again, it is only a matter of words: if these are free unions then it is okay, but if they call it marriage, it is not okay. We do hope that the civil law not conform to the “ethical judgment” of the Cardinal! The levity with which Cardinal Danneels broaches this question is truly incredible. First, he does not seem to have the least suspicion that there might exist a natural law and a magisterial teaching which no one has the right to disregard, especially 10 11 24 Cf. Response of the Sacred Penitentiaria, June 3, 1916. Ibid. the civil law–with the benediction of the partisans of the secular State–because the only auctoritas he mentions is the “ethical judgment.” Then his relativism, already in evidence in the statements just quoted, becomes even more explicit when he says about homosexuality per se: You know the Church’s doctrine on this subject: it does not involve a normal situation, in our eyes. Still, it is not a matter of condemnation or of discrimination. Once again, it is necessary to make a distinction between an ethical judgment and the laws regulating life in society. The presumed doctrine of the Church “according to Godfried” would consider homosexuality to be “not normal,” while the true doctrine according to Jesus Christ defines it, in keeping with all of holy Scripture, as “an abominable sin [that] is intrinsically repugnant to nature and to the first end of the sexual act: it is the impurity against nature.”12 And the simple “abnormality” of homosexuality, says Cardinal Danneels in the Church’s name, only would involve an abnormality “in our eyes”! The distinction the Cardinal proposes between ethical rules and the laws of society is incredible, as if the latter were independent of the former. It is not surprising, then, that earlier in the interview Cardinal Danneels–from the perspective of pure judicial positivism–would have offhandedly envisaged the possibility that the law of ecclesiastical celibacy be abolished. This perspective leads him to discount without any difficulty the recent Instruction concerning the admission of homosexuals to the priesthood: Whether he is heterosexual or homosexual, the priest has taken a vow of celibacy. I do not make any difference between the two. If a priest does not remain celibate, I will call him on it and then we’ll see what can be done [that is to say, nothing!]. But the fact of a priest’s being homosexual does not constitute, for me, a reason to intervene. Which is likely to happen first: Cardinal Danneels will be punished for his statements, or he will be received with honor by the European Parliament “for signal merits in defense of homosexuals”...? But we should after all point out that Danneels was outdone by one of his “colleagues,” the president of an episcopal conference–in Brazil, this time. It was the Archbishop of Bahia, His Excellency Geralfo Majello Agnelo, who received the “Pink Triangle Trophy,” the symbolic Oscar of the Bahia Gay Group, for the following reason: “The homage to Archbishop Agnelo must serve to open a more effective channel of communication with the Catholic Church and to encourage the creation of a pastoral ministry exclusively devoted to homosexuals.” Indeed, the Archbishop had affirmed: “It is legitimate for homosexuals to demand to be able to live in a society where their differences are respected without 12 Dictionary of Moral Theology (Rome, 1957), p.1369. THE ANGELUS • January 2007 www.angeluspress.org discrimination or persecution.” Has the Archbishop of Bahia ever heard of the chastisement of Sodom and Gomorrah? We have. Run for your life! Not to be excluded from this survey of outrage and delirium is the president of the Pontifical Council Justitia et Pax and president as well of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Itinerant People since Cardinal Fumio Hamao exceeded the age limit for this charge. We speak of Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, who has worthily inaugurated the month of March. Having praised Fidel Castro’s tolerance (stating that he has a knowledge of the Church’s social teaching and that he did not persecute Cuba’s Catholics), on Thursday, March 9, during a press conference, Cardinal Martino took a position on the teaching of Islam in the schools: “If there are a MOSLEMS Hilaire Belloc and G. Oussani •• • • The life and teachings of Mohammed What’s heresy and where we can agree What’s in the Koran? A healthy sampling How close the Moslems came to dominating Europe & why their military threat collapsed Islam & women How Moslems adapt to & use technology The origins & rapid development of Islam Why it remains a potent religious force to this day The Crusades Christianity in Arabia: once dominant, then dominated. • • • • • • 164pp, hardcover, STK# 7051. $18.80 hundred children of Islamic religion in a school, I do not see why one would not teach them their religion.” The democratic “iron logic” of Martino is disarming; the State must no longer, contrary to the unanimous teaching of the Magisterium, recognize the truth and Divine origin of the Catholic religion alone, but it must simply recognize the so-called rights of minorities. The laicity of the State shows its true, relativist face, incapable of having recourse to any other criterion than that of pressure groups. Let us hearken to the fine reflection of a celebrated Christian, Professor Pia Mancini, written in reply13 to Martino’s interview: The modern concept of transcendence [which is the opposite of true transcendence–Ed.] seeks to escape “dogmatic strictures” in order to favor the opening to the world and thus to be able to allow an unprejudiced participation in the life of the world. Indeed, a sort of revulsion towards the faith of the Fathers has spread, the faith of the fathers 13 The text was disseminated by the newsletter of the Catholic Parents Association. www.angeluspress.org The ANGeluS • January 2007 which is now considered as a despotic and obscurantist stance. It involves a vast current of ante-Christian thought, even if on certain points it shares some points in common with Catholicism, whose exigencies and [doctrinal] systems it rejects. Once considered obsolete and thus no longer worthy of consideration, the Gospel as objective Truth, the sense of the universality of Divine Revelation, falls.... That is the crux of the problem: one has the impression of reliving, moment by moment, the dialectic between Christ and the Jews as it is admirably described by St. John. While our Lord refers to the signs He has worked, signs which are observable by all and which attest without the least possible doubt His divinity, the Jews close their eyes and try to eliminate Him by every means, since His conduct and teaching reproach their own conduct and “ruin” their proud designs. Catholicism, and it alone, can show the proofs of its truth, its divine origin, and its superiority, proofs which are visible to all; and people decide, on the contrary, to act as if these proofs did not exist in order to respect the socalled rights of man and tread on the rights of God. Professor Mancini goes on: From this arrogant secularism arises the emphatic valorization of the experiences and cultures of other peoples, with which they pretend to render to each the personal freedom to make his own determination of their worth. Against the exclusivity of the Word they now oppose the subjective experiences of these revalorized cultures....Even the Pastors of the holy Roman Church have apparently not escaped this process. Such are probably the reasons that impel a Vatican authority like Cardinal Martino to express a favorable opinion on the triumphal entry of the Koran into the public school, where the Crucifix and the Infant Jesus disturb these selfsame Muslims whose sensibility we are expected to respect.... Has Cardinal Martino reflected well about the fact that by placing the teaching of the Koran on a footing of equality with that of the Catholic religion, he could form children whose conscience is indifferent towards the Catholic faith? After the Imams on the altars, the multireligious meetings and Buddha on the tabernacle, some initiatives seem to be the crowning of apostasy! “It is necessary that scandals arise...” That is true, but “woe to them by whom they come.” The “moderating” intervention of Cardinal Ruini does not break out of the relativist spiral. According to an article in the Il Giornale of March 21, signed by Tornielli, the President of the CEI declared that the teaching of the Koran in the schools “does not seem to be impossible as a matter of principle.” The only conditions would be the following: that in the content there not be “opposition to our constitution [which evidently counts more than the Gospel–Ed.], for example regarding civil rights, beginning with religious liberty, the equality of men and women, marriage,” and, moreover, “it would be necessary THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT 25 THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT to guarantee that the teaching of the Islamic religion does not give rise to a socially dangerous indoctrination.” That is all! No duty of the State to recognize the true religion, no rights of our Lord, no defense of the Catholic faith. The Voice of a True Good Shepherd After the hellish stink emanating from the indifferentist State, it is good to breathe some fresh air, so well distilled by Cardinal (then Msgr.) Pie, when he stood up to Napoleon III for the rights of Jesus Christ over civil society: It is God’s right to rule over States as over individuals. It was for this alone that our Lord came upon the earth. He ought to reign here by inspiring our laws, sanctifying our morals, enlightening our teaching, directing our counsel, and ordering the actions of governments as of the governed. It is my duty to tell you that He does not reign among us and that our Constitution is not that of a Christian and a Catholic State—far from it. Our public law establishes that the Catholic religion is that of the majority of the French people, but it adds that all other religions have a right to an equal protection. Is that not tantamount to proclaiming that the Constitution equally protects truth and error?14 When Napoleon III objected that the time was not right for understanding and accepting this vision of things, Msgr. Pie replied: Sire, when great men of politics like Your Majesty object that the moment has not come, I can only bow before their judgment, because I am not a great man of politics. But I 14 Histoire du Cardinal Pie, Vol. I, Bk. II, pp.698-99. Society of Saint Pius X District of the United States of America Regina Coeli House 11485 N. Farley Road Platte City, Missouri 64079 am a bishop, and as a bishop, I answer you: The time has not yet come for our Lord to reign? Well, then! The time has not yet come for governments to last. Now, that is the voice of the good Shepherd: the others we do not recognize and we will not follow them. Let us pray to God that He give us Shepherds who desire to conform their life to that of our Lord: “My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me....He that speaketh of himself, seeketh his own glory: but he that seeketh the glory of him that sent him, he is true, and there is no injustice in him” ( Jn. 7:16, 18). Lanterius Translated exclusively for Angelus Press from the French edition of SiSiNoNo, Courrier de Rome, September 2006, pp.4-8. $1.95 per SiSiNoNo reprint. Please specify. Shipping & Handling US $.01 to $10.00 $6.95 $10.01 to $25.00 $8.95 $25.01 to $50.00 $10.95 $50.01 to $100.00 $12.95 Over $100.00 13% of order Foreign $11.95 $13.95 $15.95 $17.95 18% of order Airmail surcharge (in addition to above) Foreign 21% of subtotal. Available from: ANGELUS PRESS 2915 Forest Avenue Kansas City, MO 64109 USA Phone: 1-800-966-7337 www.angeluspress.org NON-PROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE PAID KANSAS CITY, MO PERMIT NO. 6706 ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED 26 THE ANGELUS • January 2007 www.angeluspress.org 2 A Will and a Way M r s . M a u r a K o u l i k I am going to tell you of a song that is very meaningful to me. With a solemn sound and solemn words, there is a string of phrases that goes like this: Oh, the flesh and blood of life are yours for the taking, And my helpless human heart is yours for the breaking… Thy will be done... It is a strange flow of words, and to most modern minds a combination of words that sounds rather violent, or at the least disconnected. But if you are in possession of a soul that has ever suffered, perhaps you know of the common thread that holds them together. That thread would be a man who is said to have established a Universal Church shortly before he died on a cross; the son of a carpenter who was betrayed into the hands of his enemies by one of his chosen followers. He was seemingly a failure in all things and yet 2000 years after he died the death of a criminal, he is still revered, adored, and called Savior by millions around the world. So, where and when did the success and fame part come in? Well, primarily in His Resurrection, which proved he was not only not conquered by death but was the True Conqueror over sin and death. But in a much deeper and less easily seen sense, His success “came in” through his universal appeal to the suffering hearts of mankind. www.angeluspress.org The ANGeluS • January 2007 28 It may be rightly said that the Catholic Church is full of gloomy faces–yes, that would be the faces of the suffering souls who unfortunately have only made it through the first half of this Savior’s message (the suffering part). Human suffering is an inescapable reality. No amount of money, fame, fortune, good health, or luck will or can prevent or eliminate it. No matter how you slice it, suffering will find you. The entire world’s money may protect you from poverty, but money can bring its own heartaches and headaches and if not, other devices will assuredly meet you around some dark corner. Perfect loyalty cannot be bought, nor real friends, nor can we buy hearts, health, or peace of soul. For that matter, heartaches will come–either at the hands of others or at our own very capable hands. It is this inescapable truth of life’s suffering that brings hearts to the feet of a God who suffered. I cannot speak with much authority about other religions with their own gods, but Buddha I know is depicted oftentimes as fat, jolly, and laughing. This is a stark contrast to the Christian’s symbol of their Savior, whose bones can be counted and whose wounds cannot, a pitiable state of a man with not a drop of blood left nor breath of life. A God forever immortalized on the symbol we call the crucifix. Although there are crucifixes in every patient room at the hospital where I work, I am afraid that its significance is mostly lost on the sick who suffer there. But it is not lost to all. Some of the elderly Catholics who quietly suffer in these rooms seem keenly aware of its spiritual significance, and countless times I move rosary beads at the bedside to administer care. The God who suffered and died on a cross potentially elevates human suffering–for those who believe! And the rosary, in its simplicity, enables even the sick to pray with their lips and send a cry to heaven at a time when the body and mind are too ill to concentrate on profound words in profound prayers. “Hail Mary… Holy Mary” they rhythmically repeat over and over. These old souls quietly pray and suffer. And although they suffer, they remain at peace. Peace which comes from their Savior, hanging on the cross at the foot of their bed. And then there are the dying. I recently helped a husband bid farewell to his beloved of 54 years. As she slipped from being alert to unconsciousness and to staggered breathing in a matter of a few hours, I looked to the crucifix which hung on the opposite wall and quietly whispered in her ear, “Anneli, be sorry for your sins so that Jesus may forgive you!” Whether she was completely unconscious or not, I can’t be sure; but hearing is the last sense to go. Then looking to her husband, I cautioned that she would be with us for only a few more minutes. He came to her side and I finally slipped out. A quarter of an hour later he called for me. Coming to her head, I traced the sign of the cross on her forehead as she took her last two breaths. Then THE ANGELUS • January 2007 www.angeluspress.org all was still. It was a peaceful death, one I am sure she earned, as her husband said she prayed every night. The suffering of the dying ends and the suffering of those left behind begins. Suffering… Would a laughing Buddha have had the same significance in that situation? I can’t imagine how. But to have a God who gives us His own broken heart, to which we may attach our own broken heart–that is meaningful. We have a Lord who accepted a mission that He didn’t want. Our Savior knew pain, suffering and infinite love. He resigned Himself with four simple words, Thy Will be done. Are those words for imitation? Yes, for the brave of heart! And for those with deep faith! When it is all said and done (as I have heard Bishop Fulton Sheen say), can we ever say that our God doesn’t know what it is to have a headache? The gloomy faces that are said to fill the Catholic churches may very well understand this much, but certainly there must be a happy ending to all this serious talk of suffering and dying. Allow me to quote a little more of the song I earlier referred to: So there’s been a change in plans What am I supposed to do? When it is out of my hands And I can’t see my way through, When I can’t say Thy will be done... I will go to the altar And I’ll say, “Amen” And I’ll open my mouth And I’ll try again Thy will be done… Thy will be done… The altar? Why the altar? Amazingly enough, its significance can only be fully understood by Catholics. Ours is the only religion that fully comprehends the sacrifice of the God-Man on the altar of the cross. Every sacrifice of the Old Testament happened on an altar, and sacrifices were not abolished by the teachings of Christ, but perfected by Him. Sacrifices remain the eternal way to appease God the Father. Christ abolished animal sacrifices and human sacrifices except his very own. Now, every legitimate sacrifice offered to God the Father in Christianity will continue to take place on an altar. A blood stained altar! The unbloody sacrifice of the Savior in the Mass, united to the blood of the first martyrs, hidden deep in the altar stones, continues on our own altars and in our own hearts! Christ already took on all of our suffering; He saw it all and He suffered it all. When we desire to unite our lives to His, we are venturing to imitate His very sanctity, as His presence is in our souls through sanctifying grace. Now, He suffered in His life’s mission to save us, and reserves the right to break our 29 human hearts if that is what it takes to transform our personality that it may resemble HIM! If only we would or could come to Him in some easy way; unfortunately, we do not. We kick, scream, cry and whine all the way; all the while professing our life’s devotion to a crucified Lord. So He leads us ever forward, toward Himself and away from self. So as His leading continues and our resistance remains unbroken, we kick, scream, cry and whine all the louder, insisting that this is really not what we signed up for! Let the song continue… Well, it scares me so to think What you can take away… But I know that if I ask I will have the grace to say Thy will be done… Thy will be done… What can He take away? It would be easier to ask, what can’t He take away? We are in the palm of His hand, and every breath of life is one of His many precious gifts to us. Everything, He can take away! But by His love, kindness, and mercy, we are sustained through every minute with gifts too countless to number. Yet we cry and moan and groan about how hard our life really is; all the while being flooded by love, grace, and heaven-sent gifts. Together with Christ’s sacrifice, our own can be perfected. And that is the happy part. It is not all in vain. If we suffer, we can be Christ-like. It is the road He showed us. It is the path He has given to overcome this weak fallen nature we call humanity. His grace, through His sacraments and His church, enable these weak creatures to transcend the tragedy of pointless human suffering. Our heart-aches and bodyaches are not intended to bring us down, but rather we are asked to elevate our souls and our very lives through them. The elevation of our life comes through resignation. Resignation comes through surrendering our OWN way. Oh, it sounds so simple! But the strongest inclination the we received from Adam and that disobedient wife of his is our willfulness! It is strong. Now, this may just be my opinion, others may believe that there are other stronger deviant inclinations than selfishness, but in my experience they all come down to indulging the self and its ugly desires. The amazing thing about self is that we can become so self-righteous that we actually believe if things do not go our way, God’s plans will be foiled! What a laugh! I recently watched the movie Therese, (a Leonardo DeFillipio film) and I was honestly surprised at her strong selfishness in her pre-saintly days. Now, I can understand wanting to go to the convent as that was her heart’s desire; but to say that I want it so badly I will go all the way to the pope in order to force it to happen–that is willful! God ultimately graced her with a change in her willful heart; otherwise she wouldn’t be the wonderful saint we revere today. As mothers, if we were to teach our children about selfishness and its opposition to saintliness (gently), over the years, guiding them to selfless actions and intentions, perhaps the wiles of adolescence would be slightly diminished. I can’t say for sure, first of all because my crew of children is still young and the tendencies of selfishness in my side of the genetic chain are not to be underestimated! It certainly cannot hurt, and the earlier they learn self sacrifice, certainly the better. But to talk the talk and not walk the walk is to be the easy target of children’s accurate eye for hypocrisy. If you cannot practice it, it is better not to preach it, because your children’s respect for you is on the line. They can pick out hypocrisy with their eyes shut! In rearing children, there is rarely a moment that goes by that we aren’t asked in some way to check our own selfishness at the door. God planned the struggle of parents perfectly. We do not have to go looking for ways to become saintly. They are at our feet; behold the dirty-faced, needy, messy, childish, selfish, naughty, hungry, naked, cold, willful, sick, energetic, noisy, tired and/or wild flesh-of-our-flesh. There is no getting around it, the Thy will be done as God planned it in parenthood, and more specifically motherhood, is to be self-sacrificing, souls who have to work not only on the faults of their own fallen nature, but at the same time help their children to become saintly. Indeed, not a small task. But again, back to the song and with this I will conclude, as what more can be said than to go to our altar, sanctified with the blood of a silent, innocent Lamb, and ask for the grace to say...Thy Will be done! Well, I will go to the altar And I’ll say “Amen” And I’ll open my mouth And I’ll try again Thy will be done… Thy will be done… But I know that if I ask I will have the grace to say Thy will be done… Thy will be done…. Words and lyrics taken from Marie Bellet’s CD entitled What I Wanted to Say (Nashville TN: Elm Street Records). Marie Bellet is a Catholic mother of eight who writes her own songs and lyrics about Catholic motherhood. Her three CD’s are available through Ignatius Press. Maura Koulik is a wife and mother of five who resides in New York’s Hudson Valley. She currently home-schools, directs her parish choir, and works as a registered nurse. Her writings on motherhood have been published in various Catholic periodicals. She is the compiler and editor of the recently published book The Art of Catholic Mothering: Twelve Catholic Mothers Speak about Motherhood, Child Rearing, and the Faith (available from Angelus Press, $12.95). www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • January 2007 30 f r . F r a n ç o i s K n i t t e l A Brief Catechism on Religious Toleration The notion of “toleration” is often used by the Church’s adversaries to accuse the Church of intolerance (today considered the supreme evil) or to promote, under the guise of tolerance, the freedom of every error and every perversion. The Church, however, knows what true tolerance is. She carefully distinguishes it from false liberty. The Church is a mother who knows our weaknesses and how to forbear patiently without ever encouraging evil. For follow-up reading, see the inside back cover. What is toleration? Toleration is the act of one who does not impede an evil for the sake of promoting a greater good or of avoiding a greater evil. While it implies the exercise of several virtues, tolerance is an act and not a virtue, for it has as its object an evil. Now, Aristotle teaches that “virtue is that which makes its possessor good, and his work good likewise.” And St. Thomas writes: “The virtue of a thing must be regarded in reference to good.”The specific act of toleration consists in not preventing or in negatively permitting evil. Does God tolerate some evils? The history of the human race after original sin shows that God does tolerate some evils, whether physical or moral. Each of us can make this observation in imitation of Pope Leo XIII, who taught that God Himself in His providence, though infinitely good and powerful, permits evil to exist in the world, partly that greater good may not be impeded, and partly that greater evil may not ensue. Does tolerating evil mean approving or willing it? Evil, which is opposed to our true good, can neither be approved by the intellect nor wanted by the will. Our intellect is ordered to the true and our will to the good. Neither one of these faculties can embrace error or evil without frustrating its innate end. No authority may give such a command, because it is contrary to nature to oblige the mind and the will of man to error and evil, or to consider one or the other as indifferent. Not even God could give such a positive command or positive authorization, because it would be in contradiction to His absolute truth and sanctity.  “Virtus est quæ bonum facit habentem et opus ejus bonum reddit.” Aristotle, Ethics, II, 5; cited in the Summa Theologica, I-II, Q.55, Art.3. “Oportet quod virtus cujuslibet rei dicatur in ordine ad bonum ”; ST I-II, Q.55, Art.3.  Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, “Tolerance,” col.1209.  THE ANGELUS • January 2007 www.angeluspress.org   Leo XIII, Encyclical Libertas, June 20, 1888, §33. Pius XII, Speech to the Italian Catholic Lawyers, December 6, 1953, §5. 31 n Common sense still tells us that tolerance is the opposite of approval: it means the patient forbearance of something with the intention and in the expectation of remedying the situation. Toleration of injustice is not the same as consenting to it. On the contrary, it means disapproving it and intending to put an end to it as soon as it becomes possible to do so without provoking a greater injustice.6 Does evil have any rights? Evil, which turns man away from his end, has no right to exist, or to propagate, or to act; only that which is true and honest has. Evil is a privation of a due good, and error is the evil of the intellect. Neither one can be approved or willed or, still less, be the object of a right for “there can never be any right contrary to the eternal laws of justice.”7 For this reason, while not conceding any right to anything save what is true and honest, she does not forbid public 6 Roger-Thomas Calmel, O.P., “Sens politique et pureté,” Le Sel de la Terre, 12 bis, p.255. 7 Pius IX, Dum Civilis Societas to M. Charles Perrin, February 1, 1875. authority to tolerate what is at variance with truth and justice, for the sake of avoiding some greater evil, or of obtaining or preserving some greater good.8 “[I]t is contrary to reason that error and truth should have equal rights,”9 as it is contrary to reason that cancer should have the same rights over the body as health does. That is why “that which does not correspond to truth or to the norm of morality objectively has no right to exist, to be spread or to be activated.”10 The Pope appeals to justice and to reason, because it is not just to ascribe the same rights to good and to evil, to truth and to error.11 But it is one thing to tolerate, and another thing to admit a right. One tolerates evil, but one does not approve it.12 8 Leo XIII, Encyclical Libertas, June 20, 1888, §33. Ibid., §34. 10 Pius XII, Speech to the Catholic Italian Lawyers, December 6, 1953, §5. 11 Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, Duties of the Catholic State in Regard to Religion, tr. by Fr. Denis Fahey (Kansas City: Angelus Press, 1993), p.14, an address given at the Pontifical Atheneum of the Lateran, March 2, 1953. 12 Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, C.S.Sp., Against the Heresies (1997), p.175. 9 www.angeluspress.org The ANGeluS • January 2007 32 Why does God tolerate evil? God tolerates some evils so as not to prevent some greater goods. The liturgy suggests the reason for this Divine tolerance when, recalling the Fall, which had such dramatic consequences for the human race, it exclaims: “O certe necessarium Adae peccatum, quod Christi morte deletum est! O Felix culpa, quae talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem.”13 The order of Divine Providence integrates some evils into its general plan, which is always directed to the good, according to the word of the Apostle: “Diligentibus Deum, omnia cooperantur in bonum–to them that love God, all things work together unto good” (Rom. 8:28). St. Thomas judiciously explains the reason for this Divine tolerance: The good is great and victorious over evil, because the good can exist without evil whereas evil cannot exist without the good; that is why God bears with many evils, so that many goods may come or else not perish.14 What does the Gospel teach about toleration? To know the teaching of Jesus Christ on tolerance, one should refer to the parable of the wheat and the tares. Pope Pius XII explicitly mentions this parable in order to justify his teachings on the exercise of tolerance: Not to mention here other Scriptural texts which are adduced in support of this argument, Christ in the parable of the cockle gives the following advice: let the cockle grow in the field of the world together with the good seed in view of the harvest (cf. Mt. 13:24-30). The duty of repressing moral and religious error cannot therefore be an ultimate norm of action. It must be subordinate to higher and more general norms, which in some circumstances permit, and even perhaps seem to indicate as the better policy, toleration of error in order to promote a greater good.15 Commenting on this parable, St. Thomas enumerates four reasons why the wicked should not be removed for the sake of the good: The fourth reason comes from the fact that a man can have great power; in this case, were he excluded, he would drag many with him, and then many would perish with the wicked one.16 Must men imitate this Divine tolerance? In the government of earthly affairs, men must imitate Divine toleration. If God, who is truth and sanctity, acts with tolerance, those who govern earthly things are invited to imitate Him: Human government is derived from the Divine government, and should imitate it. Now although God is all-powerful and supremely good, nevertheless He allows certain evils to take place in the universe, which He might prevent, lest, without them, greater goods might be forfeited, or greater evils ensue. Accordingly in human government also, those who are in authority rightly tolerate certain evils, lest certain goods be lost, or certain greater evils be incurred: thus Augustine says (De Ordine ii.4): “If you do away with harlots, the world will be convulsed with lust.”17 Who exercises tolerance? The authority in the family, in society, or in the Church applies tolerance. In the framework of a familial, civil, or religious society, only the authority is apt to practice tolerance for the sake of the common good: But if, in such circumstances, for the sake of the common good (and this is the only legitimate reason), human law may or even should tolerate evil, it may not and should not approve or desire evil for its own sake; for evil of itself, being a privation of good, is opposed to the common welfare which every legislator is bound to desire and defend to the best of his ability.18 Thus it is the political authority in the city and the religious authority for what involves questions of morality that must apply the principles of tolerance to particular situations: Before all else the Catholic statesman must judge if this condition is verified in the concrete–this is the “question of fact.” In his decision he will permit himself to be guided by weighing the dangerous consequences that stem from toleration against those from which the community of nations will be spared if the formula of toleration be accepted. Moreover, he will be guided by the good which, according to a wise prognosis, can be derived from toleration for the international community as such, and indirectly for the member state. In that which concerns religion and morality he will also ask for the judgment of the Church. For her, only he to whom Christ has entrusted the guidance of His whole Church is competent to speak in the last instance on such vital questions touching international life; that is, the Roman Pontiff.19 One reason is that the good are tried by the bad....Then, it may happen that someone who is bad now may later become good, like St. Paul. For if Paul had been killed, we would have been deprived of the doctrine of so great a master, which God forbid.... In the third place, some seem bad but are not; that is why if you wanted to remove the wicked, you would also extirpate many of the good. And this is clear from the fact that God did not want them to be uprooted before reaching perfect maturity.... 13 Liturgy of the Paschal Vigil, Exsultet: “O truly needful sin of Adam, which was blotted out by the death of Christ! O happy fault, that merited to possess such and so great a Redeemer!” 14 St. Thomas Aquinas, In Mat. c.XIII, lect.II, no.1148; see also ST, I, Q.22, Art.2 ad 2 and II-II, Q.10, Art.11. “Bonum est magnum, et victoriosum supra malum, quia bonum potest esse sine malo, malum autem non sine bonum; ideo sustinet Dominus multa mala, ut veniant vel etiam ne pereant multa bona.” 15 Pius XII, Speech to Italian Catholic Lawyers, December 6, 1953, §5. THE ANGELUS • January 2007 www.angeluspress.org 16 St. Thomas Aquinas, In Mat., c.XIII, lect.II, no.1149. Summa Theologica, II-II, Q.10, Art.11. See also the Vatican II preparatory schema “On the Relations between Church and State and on Religious Toleration,” No.6, and Leo XIII, Libertas, §33. 18 Leo XIII, Libertas, §33 19 Pius XII, Speech to Italian Catholic Lawyers, §5. 17 33 What circumstances justify tolerance? Tolerance is justified whenever and for as long as by it one can promote a greater good or avoid a greater evil. Tolerance is not a good in itself, no more so than freedom is. Tolerance is only morally licit when the suppression of an evil would cause greater evils than the one being tolerated. In such instances the popes speak “of avoiding some greater evil, or of obtaining or preserving some greater good.”20 In practice, what does this mean? One of the limits that circumscribes the exercise of tolerance is duration. It is especially necessary to emphasize this, for what lasts a long time often seems to men to gain an autonomous existence and a right to exist. If custom is like a second nature and often acquires the force of law, this holds true of bad custom as well as of good. Hence the insistence by popes and canonists that tolerance not be extended longer than necessary: Wherefore, if such tolerance would be injurious to the public welfare, and entail greater evils on the State, it would not be lawful; for in such case the motive of good is wanting.24 The following specific examples can be given of “greater evil” to be avoided or “greater good” to be obtained by religious tolerance: “Greater evil”: scandal of the faithful on seeing the persecution of dissidents; civil war; obstacle to the conversion of the misguided to the true Faith... “Greater good”: civil cooperation and peaceful coexistence of citizens of different religions when it can be effectively obtained...; a greater liberty for the Church in the accomplishment of her supernatural mission...21 Today as in the past, where the circumstances make it advisable, one may exercise tolerance towards false religions and false doctrines, but when such circumstances no longer pertain, the rights of the truth must be maintained, and men preserved from error.25 • • Are there limits to tolerance? The exercise of tolerance is unjustified if it engenders more evil than good. Since tolerance is only good in certain circumstances and not in and of itself, it is thus limited in its exercise. The canonist Capello detailed, for example, the limits to the tolerance of the public worship of false religions in these terms: That is why the freedom of worship cannot be admitted except on these conditions: 1) that it be civil tolerance, not religious (which would include a profession of indifference towards the diverse religions); and consequently, that 2) it not be taken as an approval of evil or of a false religion; 3) that it be admitted as a remedy required by circumstances temporarily, that is, only for as long as serious reasons pertaining to public order prevail; 4) that it not impede a prudent exposition of the truth and initiatives for the restoration of good law.22 This teaching was confirmed by Archbishop Lefebvre when he wrote: Tolerance loses its reason for being if it brings more evil than good...Tolerance could be good for a time and then become bad...If private tolerance is sufficient, there is no reason to grant public tolerance, and even less a liberty of propaganda for moral or religious error.23 The measure of the tolerance of evil is this: it may be tolerated so long as that is necessary to avoid greater evils or not to impede greater goods.26 What virtues oblige the granting of toleration? When tolerance is an obligation, it is a duty of political prudence towards the common good and also a duty of charity towards the misguided, but in no instance is it a duty of justice. Toleration of an evil can be the object of an obligation in certain circumstances. This obligation, however, does not derive from justice, for the object of justice is a right,27 and, as Pius XII reiterates, that which does not correspond to truth or to the norm of morality objectively has no right to exist, to be spread or to be activated.28 However, tolerance can be obligatory from the standpoint of political prudence, which unceasingly pursues the common good and considers the obstacles to be overcome,29 and from the standpoint of charity towards the strayed sheep, that they may be attracted by the Church. On the eve of Vatican II, such was the common teaching: In this protection of the true Faith, it is necessary to proceed according to the exigencies of Christian charity and of prudence, so that the dissidents not be estranged from the Church through fear, but rather that they be drawn to her; and that neither the city nor the Church suffer any harm from it.30 Is the practice of toleration for a limited time and duration? Tolerance is licit only so long as the conditions and circumstances that gave rise to it last. 24 Leo XIII, Libertas, §34. S. Congregation for Seminaries, Letter to the Brazilian Episcopate, March 7, 1950. 26 “Mensura mali tolerandi haec est, sci. ut tantum toleretur, quantum necessarium est ad huiusmodi mala vitanda vel bona non impedienda.” Capello, S.J., Summa Juris Publici Ecclesiastici, p.371. 27 ST, II-II, Q.57: “right (jus) is the object of justice.” 28 Speech to Italian Catholic Lawyers, §5. 29 ST, II-II, Q.49, Art.6-8. 30 Vatican II Preparatory Schema “On the Relations Between Church and State and on Religious Toleration,” No.6. 25 20 Leo XIII, Libertas, §33. See also Leo XIII, Encyclical Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885; Pius IX, Letter Dum Civilis Societas to M. Charles Perrin, February 1, 1875; Pius XII, ibid. 21 Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Mes doutes sur la liberté religieuses (Clovis, 2000), p.121 [English version: Religious Liberty Questioned (Kansas City: Angelus Press, 2002), p.89]. 22 Capello, S.J., Summa Juris Publici Ecclesiastici (Rome, 1936), p.370. 23 Religious Liberty Questioned, pp.89-90. www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • January 2007 34 This summary merely repeated the teachings of the pontiffs and canonists: [T]he tolerance of evil which is dictated by political prudence should be strictly confined to the limits which its justifying cause, the public welfare, requires.31 That is why, should it be foreseen that, both for the Church and for the State, greater evils must result from intolerance than from civil tolerance, this same duty [the more universal duty incumbent upon the public authority to avert evil insofar as that is possible], according to the rules of prudence and charity, counsels tolerance, not that it must be approved in itself, but because, in the circumstances, it is a lesser evil.32 be universally good, since we must always render our neighbor what we owe him and what already belongs to him. If tolerance is a duty of charity and of prudence, as we have seen that it is, it is limited by certain circumstances in which I cede what is mine for my neighbor’s sake. The obligation and the duty on my side do not engender a right to be claimed by the other party. Thus, while I have the general duty to give alms sometimes, no needy person can require it of me as his right. Since the notion of a right to tolerance based upon justice is the current error, Archbishop Lefebvre used to teach: Let us carefully distinguish on the one hand the virtue of justice, which, by assigning their duties to some, gives to others the corresponding right, that is to say, the power to demand, and, on the other hand, the virtue of charity, which indeed imposes duties onto some, without however assigning any right to the others.35 Can the exercise of tolerance be the object of a duty? When there is a great good to promote or a great evil to avoid, toleration is a duty of prudence and of charity. If tolerance is not a good in itself independently of the circumstances that justify its exercise, it should not be deduced that its exercise would always be optional. No, there are cases in which its practice would be the object of a veritable duty: One tolerates evil, but one does not approve it.36 In certain cases error is tolerated, but it is never admitted to be a natural right...It is normal for the Church, then, to tolerate what it cannot prevent as in a place where there is a majority of non-Catholics. But the heads of State can only offer the dissident tolerance, they cannot admit their possession of any natural right.37 ...in such circumstances, for the sake of the common good (and this is the only legitimate reason), human law may or even should tolerate evil...33 The State may, or must, tolerate evil or error any time such tolerance concurs with or promotes a greater good.34 Does someone who acts badly or who is in error acquire a right to be tolerated? Since tolerance is governed by prudence and charity, and not by justice, it confers no right to be tolerated upon the one who errs. From the tolerance that can become a duty and an obligation for the authority in a society, a natural right of the erring party to be tolerated cannot be deduced. This becomes obvious upon considering what is common to justice and to charity, and what each one has in particular. Justice, like charity, can engender obligations; in this there is no difference between them. But in justice I give to my neighbor what belongs to him, whereas in charity I give to my neighbor what belongs to me. In justice, I give to my neighbor what is his, while in charity I give what is mine. If tolerance were a duty in justice, it would become a principle the application of which would The duty of tolerance in those being tolerated does not create any right to be tolerated since a right supposes, on the authority granting such right, a duty of justice.38 Does the principle of tolerance have applications in a Catholic’s personal life? Since the heart of man itself is shared by good and evil, the exercise of toleration towards oneself is often a necessity. While it is true that tolerance has many varied applications in civil society, it is of real interest for each of us. Indeed, good and evil dispute within our own hearts. There is matter to practice tolerance towards ourselves even as we work to correct ourselves. We are sinners, we have evil tendencies, but we are not going to kill ourselves because we cannot tolerate our vices; we must bear with ourselves, to a certain degree, without, however, approving our vices. We bear them while trying to combat them and re-establish order within ourselves.39 We know that it is impossible to completely suppress sin; we cannot suppress ourselves. Of course, one tolerates sin as one tolerates oneself. But that does not mean that we put our virtues and vices on a par, saying that the ones are as good as the others. On the contrary, we fight against our vices, even though we know that we shall suffer from something 31 Leo XIII, Libertas, §34. “Unde, si maiora mala ex intolerantia quam ex tolerantia civili tam Ecclesiae quam Statui oritura praevideantur, idem illud officium secundum regulas prudentiae et caritatis tolerantiam suadet, non quod in se sit approbanda, sed quia in his circumstantiis minus malum est.” Capello, S.J., Summa Juris Publici Ecclesiastici, pp.370-71. See also Archbishop Lefebvre, Ils l’ont découronné (Fideliter, 1987), p.110, and Mes doutes sur la liberté religieuse, p.123. 33 Leo XIII, Libertas, §33. 34 Lefebvre, Religious Liberty Questioned, p.87. 32 THE ANGELUS • January 2007 www.angeluspress.org 35 They Have Uncrowned Him, p.198. Against the Heresies, p.175. Ibid., pp.176-77. 38 Religious Liberty Questioned, p.91. 39 Lefebvre, Against the Heresies, p.175. 36 37 35 until the end of our days. The point is clear: we tolerate ourselves and others.40 Does tolerance apply to social life? Tolerance applies to society when a frontal attack against certain evils would lead to the dissolution of society, to the destruction of the common good, or to anarchy. In imitation of the Divine government of the universe, which tolerates certain evils in order to attain a greater good or to avoid a greater evil, human societies must sometimes practice tolerance.41 This is all the more true for men, in that civil society often only reaches the exterior aspect of human acts, whereas the Sovereign Judge judges both the internal forum and external manifestations. Human positive law cannot forbid all that the moral law forbids42 under pain of rendering social life impossible.43 The rule of toleration in civil society is always the common good, sometimes considered in the aspect of “public welfare.”44 Does a policy of the toleration of false religions imply the equality of religions or necessitate the indifferentism of the State and its official abstention from public acts of worship? The need to tolerate in specific circumstances the public exercise of false religions does not signify the equality of all religions or the obligation of the civil authorities to refrain from participating in acts of public worship. The toleration of an evil such as the public exercise of false religions is the prudent and charitable response to an unfortunate state of things. This concrete response takes away nothing of the obligation for each and all, individuals and societies, to honor God according to the true religion He has revealed. It is one thing to tolerate false religions, and something entirely different to affirm the false principle of the equality of religions or the agnosticism of the State: Nor is there any reason why any one should accuse the Church of being wanting in gentleness of action or largeness of view, or of being opposed to real and lawful liberty. The Church, indeed, deems it unlawful to place the various forms of divine worship on the same footing as the true religion, but does not, on that account, condemn those rulers who, for the sake of securing some great good or of hindering some great evil, patiently allow custom or usage to be a kind of sanction for each kind of religion having its place in the State.47 It is thus always necessary to consider the common good of the Church as well as that of the State, in virtue of which a just tolerance, even sanctioned by laws, can, according to the circumstances, be incumbent upon the civil power...In this matter, it is necessary to take into account, not only the good of the national interest, but also that of the universal Church or the international public order.45 Does the Church sometimes permit the exercise of tolerance? In the case of a society divided by religions in which the repression of the public exercise of false worship could lead to grave evils for society, the Church allows the use of tolerance towards the false religions. Our Mother the Church knows both the cockle and the enemy that sowed it. She thus knows that tolerance is often a necessity in order to advance things more humano vulnerato [in a way suited to men wounded by original sin]. Her principles in the matter have never changed, even if the corruption of the present times necessitates that these principles be applied more often than previously: Yet, with the discernment of a true mother, the Church weighs the great burden of human weakness, and well knows the course down which the minds and actions of men are in this our age being borne.46 40 Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, The Mystery of Jesus (Kansas City: Angelus Press, 2000), p.83. 41 See Leo XIII, Libertas, §33-34. 42 ST, I-II, Q.96, Art.2. 43 See Archbishop Lefebvre, Against the Heresies, p.175, and Fr. Calmel, O.P., “Sens politique et pureté,” Sel de la Terre, No.12 bis, pp.255-57. 44 Leo XIII, Libertas, §34. 45 Vatican II Preparatory Schema “On the Relations of Church and State, and on Religious Toleration,” No.6. 46 Leo XIII, Libertas, §33. In the 19th century, Dom Guéranger carefully distinguished between tolerance (or liberty, as they called it then) on the one hand, and indifferentism and the agnosticism of the State on the other: I know that [the liberals] always try to muddle the question by demanding it in the name of the freedom promised and guaranteed to dissidents; but haven’t we replied a thousand times that this freedom, having become a fundamental article of our new public law, only involves a small minority of citizens, who have no right to demand that the civil authority renounce the protection it owes to the religion of the immense majority? It is, then, not question here of imposing any yoke whatsoever upon our separated brethren, but of halting the course of an error insulting to the Church and her divine Head, and which consists in repeating, with the indifferentists, that the alliance of Church and State, instead of being a goal proposed by Christ in giving His Gospel, would be a temporary and superannuated form from which Christian liberalism delivers us.48 Whence comes the confusion between tolerance on the one hand, and indifferentism and the agnosticism of the State on the other? In reality, the problem arises from a univocal way of thinking, deprived of all sense of analogy; a way of thinking according to which between the prohibition of the 47 48 Ibid., §36. Dom Prosper Guéranger, O.S.B., Jésus-Christ roi de l’histoire (St. Macaire: Association St. Jerome, 2005), pp.166-67. www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • January 2007 36 public exercise of false religions and the equality of all religions there is no middle term: The objection and the misunderstanding on the subject of tolerance arise from the fact that one does not suppose a middle term between the exclusion of dissident sects and equality granted to all. Only two forms of relations between Church and State are envisaged: the protection granted to the Church by the State in a nation where the religious unity is complete and where no dissident sects are tolerated; and the equal protection granted by the State to all religious confessions that do not disturb the public peace, with no privilege for the Catholic Church recognized. The matter being thus framed, it is not difficult to establish that the unity of religion has been broken in modern societies and therefore to conclude that the second form, however inferior it may be to the first, is the only one admissible today. But there is a third hypothesis, which is the right one: it is that of the Christian State, acknowledging the divine mission of the Catholic Church, and nevertheless tolerating, without actual cooperation, the practice of dissident religions, which have the rights acquired by this tolerance.49 between herself and the State to be the ideal. But she also knows that for a while events have been developing rather in the opposite direction, that is to say, towards a multiplicity of religious confessions and conceptions of life in the same national community—in which the Catholics would constitute a more or less substantial minority.51 The Church never sacrifices her principles to circumstances. She tolerates what she cannot avoid, but she always works towards the entire realization of the ideal Christ confided to her: ...Pius IX’s doctrine is that of Gregory XVI and of Pius VI; it is the same, not only because the same divine spirit that animated these two pontiffs is in him, but because the teachings the Church has received from his sacred mouth are there before us, and in which we venerate the age-old doctrine in all its firmness and immutability. Undoubtedly, when we contemplate the state of modern societies we cannot keep from recognizing with sadness the movement that drags them very far, alas! from the true Christian theory; but we honor the inspired constancy of the Church, our Mother, who never compromises with error; and, full of confidence in the supernatural vocation of nations, we salute before hand the day when, after the experiences and the trials that, perhaps, Divine Providence yet has in store for them, they will return and place themselves under the yoke of Christ the King, and will repeat, from one extremity of Europe to the other, the ancient motto of Charlemagne’s France: Deus vincit, Deus regnat, Deus imperat.52 Is the obligation to exercise tolerance a sign of a healthy society? Insofar as the exercise of tolerance is caused by an evil disseminated in a society, in the same measure it must be observed that sickness is undermining the social body. Tolerance is a response made to a sickness in society, error or sin. The extent of its usage is a clear sign of the general state of a society: “...the more a State is driven to tolerate evil, the further is it from perfection....”50 Thus one readily understands Archbishop Lefebvre’s insistent objections against a conciliar doctrine and practice that sacrifice principles to public pressure: Tolerance is a Catholic principle and is, under certain circumstances, a duty of charity and of political prudence towards the minorities. Tolerantism is, on the contrary, a liberal error which wants to grant to all dissidents indiscriminately and under all circumstances, and in justice, the same rights as the ones enjoyed by those who are in the truth, moral or religious.53 How does the tolerance defined by Catholic doctrine differ from the freedom advocated by liberalism? According to Catholic doctrine, tolerance is a matter of circumstances and prudence in the application of immutable principles, whereas liberalism advocates the definitive sacrifice of these principles, purportedly inapplicable, in favor of a liberty defined as an absolute good. The Church has always striven to apply with prudence and discernment the immutable principles to the changing conditions of society. The ideal She presents is that of a collaboration between the Church and the State, and the social kingship of Jesus Christ. Certainly, she cannot but observe that today the conditions for realizing this ideal are far from being optimal: The Church does not hide the fact that she considers this collaboration [between the Church and the State] in principle to be normal, and that she considers the unity of a people in the true religion and the unanimity of action 49 Abbé Emmanuel Barbier, Histoire du libéralisme catholique (1924), p.55. The expression “rights acquired” is used by the author to designate a tolerance sanctioned by civil law and not a natural right (a natural “right” to tolerance does not exist, as we have seen). 50 Leo XIII, Libertas, §34. THE ANGELUS • January 2007 www.angeluspress.org But be careful! For the liberal Catholics, that is not the question! According to them, in practice, the principles which are nevertheless by definition rules of action, must not be applied or advocated because they are inapplicable, they say. This is obviously false: must we renounce the preaching and the application of the commandments of God...because people want no more of this? Because modern mentality tends to the liberation from all moral rules? Is it necessary to renounce the social Kingship of Jesus Christ in a country under the pretext that Mohammed or Buddha wants a place there?54 Translated exclusively by Angelus Press from Sel de la Terre, No.57, Summer 2006. Fr. François Knittel, ordained for the Society of Saint Pius X in 1989, is stationed at the Society’s priory in Strasbourg, France. 51 Pius XII, Speech to the Tenth International Congress of Historical Sciences, September 7, 1955. Guéranger, Jésus-Christ roi de l’histoire, p.170. 53 They Have Uncrowned Him, p.109. 54 Ibid., p.108. 52 3 BooK ReVieW TITLE: The Church and the Land AUTHOR: Fr. Vincent McNabb, O.P. PUBLISHER: IHS Press DISTRIBUTOR: Angelus Press. Price: $14.95 REVIEWER: Dr. Peter E. Chojnowski SUMMARY: The Church and the Land is a collection of Fr. McNabb’s essays opposing the state of many modern cities which have forced many Catholics into great debt, birth control, and encouraged a lack of recollection and peace of soul. Fr. McNabb’s Dominican training is evident in this concise and challenging work. If Catholics are going to confront the world with the idea that they have the ultimate solutions to the fundamental problems of human life and society, they must also provide this same neo-pagan world with the proximate solutions. This, more than any other idea, is the point of Fr. Vincent McNabb’s recently republished text, The Church and the Land. McNabb, born Joseph McNabb in Portaferry, Ireland, near Belfast, in 1868 and ordained a priest in the Dominican order, spent his entire life living out the statement in St. Thomas’s Summa that the most perfect form of human life is the one in which the contemplative channels his own attained wisdom into action, both through teaching others and acting amongst the society of men to achieve the good of all. The wisdom which Fr. McNabb drew upon was common fare for many Catholics prior to the twin disasters of World War II and Vatican II. The three works that he speaks of as being his well of inspiration were the Bible, the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas, and Rerum Novarum, the encyclical on the condition of the working class issued in 1891 by Leo XIII. The coherent social teaching of the Catholic Church, beginning with Rerum Novarum, was for Fr. McNabb simply Thomism in action. Action, the actual realizing of “the good of the true,” was clearly the intent of The Church and the Land. If we see the concrete, lived problems of the age and we know the Catholic moral, doctrinal, and social principles which are meant to be remedies for any human problems, we cannot but desire to implement those truths in the lives of real men, women, and children in order to help ameliorate the evils incumbent upon life in the Liberal System and facilitate their movement towards their ultimate end. The problems which Fr. McNabb was addressing in 1925, when he wrote this text, were real; for example, the rapid decline of Catholic cultural life and practice in the urban milieu of England and America, along with the lower birthrates which were causing the Catholic portion of the citizenry in Britain and America to plummet relative to the overall growth in population. In support of this, he cites American Archbishop Edwin O’Hara, who documented the demographic fact that the general population of the United States had increased by 17% from 1906 to 1916, while the Catholic Church increased its numbers by only 10% during the same period. This was compared to a 19% increase in membership in Protestant Churches. Fr. McNabb’s www.angeluspress.org The ANGeluS • January 2007 38 answer to these very concrete problems was simple: Catholic families must consider returning to the land if they are to serve as the building blocks of a restored Christian Order. This advice to the Catholics of the 1920’s, ’30’s, and early ’40’s was not merely a matter of demography, but a grave moral concern, since he continually asserts that modern urban life is a proximate occasion of sin. Throughout this text, Fr. McNabb provides examples of the moral compromises that almost inevitably follow from life in the urban/suburban world of contemporary cities. What we see in McNabb’s advocacy of the Back-to-the-Land movement in England was not merely a practical moral solution to real human problems, but a general questioning of the progressive nature of our contemporary Liberal, Consumerist, and Technologydominated world. In his “Attempt at a Social Balance Sheet,” McNabb challenges us by forcing us to look at the damage done to normal human life by industrialism and urbanization. How many families have their own home? How many workers live over their work? How many mothers go out to work? How many children are in the average family? These are questions which the modern manipulators of mass opinion insist do not matter. But they do matter, not only for Depression Era urban workers, but for ourselves in this Micro Age. Are we not continually saying that milieu matters? Is it not the case that the whole reason for re-establishing Christendom, other than to make everything a footstool of Our Lord Jesus Christ, is to make the external society more conducive to living the life of virtue, both natural and supernatural? Does the technology-based urban system, which is expanding THE ANGELUS • January 2007 www.angeluspress.org every day, incline us and ours to the life that God wishes us to live. Does it provide us with the daily food for contemplation from which a stable life of human nobility and meritorious supernatural acts flow? Fr. McNabb’s answer is clearly “No.” It is a “No” that has the potential to shake the inhuman economic system which daily forces men and women to sacrifice the normal so that a few rich men may increase their profits. The way in which McNabb’s critique throws into question the foundations of the current economic system is by focusing on the fact that the modern capitalist industrial economy, and certainly all of the socialist economies that have been known, concentrates human effort and manpower on the production of what Fr. McNabb calls “secondary goods.” The key to rectifying man’s economic maladies and dislocations is the dedication of the greater part of human manpower to the production of “primary goods,” the food, clothing, fuel, and shelter that man needs to sustain life. By focusing their craft know-how upon the basic means of human sustenance, the nation, the local community, or even, in a certain way, the family can attain a level of self-sufficiency that would establish them as stable and coherent communities. In this regard, Fr. McNabb, being always the Dominican, cites the political teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas in his text De Regimine Principum to advance this view that the self-sufficient society and community, especially in regard to the production of “primary goods,” is the best form of human society. Citing from Chapter III of the De Regno, as this text is often called, McNabb points out that St. Thomas states: 39 The more a thing is found to be self-sufficient the better it is; because what needs another is clearly wanting.... Therefore it is better for a city if it has a sufficiency of things from its own lands, than if it should be exposed to commerce. To this St. Thomas adds the authority of Aristotle who stated that “it is more fitting that the citizens should be occupied outside cities, than that they should dwell always within the city walls.” Here we see how McNabb, advocating a flourishing agrarian life, perfectly fits within Aristotelian-Thomistic social, political, and economic thought. It is in the informative introduction by Dr. William Fahey, professor at Christendom College, that we find an answer to the question that continually surrounds the agrarian answer to many of the modern world’s problems, “How can this pleasing vision of the way society ought to be be realized in the lives of real men and women in our own age?” In answer to this question, Dr. Fahey first provides us with a summary of the concrete results of the agrarian Catholic Land Movement as it really existed both in Britain and the United States prior to World War II. Confronted with the economic catastrophe of 1929-1930, some 26,000 men took advantage of temporary government subsidies to move from urban areas to farming properties. According the statistics cited, some 73% of these transplanted city-dwellers remained on the land as successful small-holding farmers. These efforts in England, Wales, and Scotland were encouraged by Popes Pius XI and Pius XII, the British Catholic Hierarchy, and a host of Catholic intellectuals. The race to the rural was even more impressive in the United States. Here, between the years 1930-32, some 764,000 moved from the city to the countryside to take up life on the land.1 By quoting from St. Thomas Aquinas’s De Regimine Principum and by continually citing Pope Leo XIII’s statement in Rerum Novarum that “The law should favor ownership. Its policy should be to induce as many as possible of the humbler classes to become owners,” Fr. McNabb firmly sets his agrarian vision within the intellectual tradition of the Catholic world. The palpable and enticing goals set by Fr. McNabb, the American Catholic Rural Life Movement, the British Catholic Land Movement, and the Distributist League were instrumental in reviving an appreciation, in the first half of the 20th century, for the traditional political outlook of the Catholic Church that emphasized subsidiarity (i.e., a decentralized political and economic order) and the common good. Understanding himself to be only following a path cut by the great doctors of the Catholic past and, specifically, responding to the cry in Rerum Novarum that “a remedy must be found, and found quickly,” we are not surprised that, in this text, Fr. McNabb explicitly denies that he is a part of any political movement; rather he understood himself to be a pastor of souls who was urging families to find a life in harmony with nature, a life where work, worship, intellectual leisure, and family life were all of a cloth, for the good of their bodies and their souls. If the thoughts and hopes that have inspired [this book] do not inspire some of our readers, the book will have been written in vain. Indeed, not only will the writing of the book, but even the many years of life and thought behind the book, will have been in vain. To find no one answering our Call to Contemplatives will seem to give the lie to one of our deepest and most mature convictions. In this quotation from the first chapter of The Church and the Land, entitled “A Call to Contemplatives,” which he insists should also be read as the last chapter, Fr. McNabb states that what he is calling for is an Exodus, an Exodus from the modern techno-urban versions of the “flesh-pots” of Egypt to the land “flowing with milk and honey.” In order to clarify for his reader what he intends by this “call” and his reasons for drawing this comparison between the flight of the Israelites from captivity in Egypt to the “wilderness” of Sinai and the “Back to the Land Movement” which he led, McNabb emphasizes that it is only for a religious motive that anyone would desert the cities for the difficult life of the country or remain on the land in spite of the financial enticements of the suburbs or the city. In pointing out that the Israelites left Egypt not to inherit a land of “milk and honey,” but to “worship God,” McNabb preached in 1925 what we traditional Catholics heard at a much later date from Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. In his Priestly Jubilee Sermon on September 23, 1979, the Archbishop stated, when addressing the lay faithful: And I wish that, in these troubled times, in this degenerate urban atmosphere in which we are living, that you return to the land whenever possible. The land is healthy; the land teaches one to know God; the land draws one to God; it calms temperaments, characters, and encourages the children to work. Why encourage “contemplatives” to rediscover the land? Shouldn’t we leave them alone lest they hurt themselves? Does it help the advancement of Thomism, the perennial philosophical tradition of the Church, that thinking men and women know what feed grain is needed for a ewe in her last period of gestation? Yes, it does. If the Realism of St. Thomas is to be more to us than a system of true but remote abstractions, we must continually refer back to the natural realities that generated the concepts in the first place. It is not to be forgotten that the primary referent for Aristotelian philosophy is organic being. In the farm yard there is no Cartesian “pure extension.” Dr. Peter E. Chojnowski has an undergraduate degree in Political Science and another in Philosophy from Christendom College. He also received his master’s degree and doctorate in Philosophy from Fordham University. He and his wife Kathleen are the parents of six children. He teaches at Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington, and for the Society of Saint Pius X at Immaculate Conception Academy, Post Falls, Idaho. 1 R. Borsodi, Flight from the City: An Experiment in Creative Living on the Land (New York, 1933), p. xxii. www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • January 2007 0 F r . B r e n d a n A r t h u r DE MORTE QUADAM VIRTUALI (On a Virtual Death) Communicate at breakneck speed And surf the net where there’s a need Through technology we’ll all be freed Per novum ordinem hominis.1 Books are waiting to be read The mind is needing to be fed What wikipedia never said Sapientia causarum est.7 Internet and cyberspace Virtual names without a face Impersonal in every case Quis est proximus meus?2 To life, not virtuality! A large dose of reality And human commonality Et dives ego satis.8 Will there never be a price to pay For such a world and such a day Where everyone will have his say? Stulti infiniti sunt.3 As birds soar past the inching snail The post is slower than email But not yet quite beyond the pale Stylo confirmatus sum.9 Years of this may take its toll But I shall now take back control And become more of a thinking soul Pax Domini nobiscum.4 Sworn am I to write to each Who humour this determined breach Of electronic, cyber speech Expectans, expectavi.10 Life’s too short to spend it all on techne ere the night doth fall And trumpets sound the waking call Per sepulchra regionum.5 Perhaps someone will be so kind And send the writings they might find Of Andrew Bolt and Frank Devine, Et Mirandae filiae eius.11 Thus frarthur at sspx dot net received a fatal hex And will be no more, Sunday next Moriens morietur.6 To life offline, then, do I turn As all things cyber shall I spurn While none of my bridges to you do I burn Valete, amici! Adieu.12 Fr. Brendan Arthur studied at St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary and was ordained in 2002 for the Society of Saint Pius X. He is currently serving at a priory in Holland. 1 Through the new order of men. Who is my neighbor? (Luke 10:29). 3 The number of fools is infinite (Eccles. 1:15). 4 May the peace of the Lord be with us. 5 Through earth’s sepulchres (from the Dies Irae). 6 Dying he shall die. 7 “Sapientia est scientia quae considerat causas primas et universales causas; sapientia causas primas omnium causarum considerat–Wisdom [i.e., phi2 losophy] is the science which considers first and universal causes; wisdom considers the first causes of all causes” (St. Thomas, In Metaph., I, lect. ii). 8 And I am rich enough. 9 By the pen am I strengthened. 10 With expectation I have waited (Ps. 39). 11 And of his daughter Miranda. The two gentlemen are journalists in Australia, and, yes, Mr. Devine has a daughter named Miranda. 12 Farewell, my friends! Goodbye. Five Minutes with Fr. de Chivré: Divine Intimacy Qui manet in caritate in Deo manet.–He that abideth in charity, abideth in God. (I Jn. 4:16) To dwell. The arrival of a presence brings a new atmosphere to the house. A visit changes for a few moments the rhythm of activities in the home. Someone’s stay automatically creates a program of thought and activities determined by the nature, the function, the temperament of the person. There are subjects of conversation we avoid. There are entertainments we propose. There is a new psychological climate to which parents and children submit themselves. Once the outsider has left, we “fall back into our old habits.” A definitive arrival (e.g. a teacher, mother-in-law, etc.) imposes a new climate to which the former has to make an effort to adapt itself: the politics of concessions. To dwell: it means not only to arrive, settle in and remain, but it means, on account of all that: to change one’s mentality by the very fact of a presence equipped with its own. When the Visitor is Christ, the Presence is not an outsider for us. He knows us, weighs us, and loves us. Receive Him with the mentality of a family member: “Jam non dicam servos meos sed amicos meos.–I do not call you servants, but friends.” There is no need to fear a conflict of opinion or tastes between Him, the perfect Man, and us, in what we possess as truly human, that is to say, natural good and supernatural virtue. This human aspect is predisposed from the beginning to get along with the Divine Visitor. This aspect represents the region of our being in which His Presence will feel it was expected and will feel instinctively at home. “My joy is to be among the children of men.” Our natural qualities tempt God to the benefit of the activities of His grace. His arrival in us is therefore not “bothersome,” and in principle the true human and the true Christian in us should feel nothing but an irresistible desire to welcome Him on account of the harmony which is pre-established between Him and us. If we knew Him such as He is for each one of us, if we knew Him with what He brings to each one of us, then there would be a real welcome (knowing oneself www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • January 2007 42 expected, knowing oneself received, knowing oneself begged not to leave). “Dwell in Me as I dwell in you.” As I dwell in you. Christ comes to us hidden, as if He did not want to be seen entering into our home, so that no one might come to bother Him during the conversation He wants to have with us all alone. Hidden: the better to belong to us for as long as possible. He comes to us sincere, such as He is, the Redeemer, anxious to associate us with Him, without the worldly conventions of appearances; such as He is with His fabulous life, explanation of His fabulous generosity. He comes to us buried in the humility of the stable, intrepid in the activity of the apostolate, loyal to His redemptive duty of state, despised in His Calvary, blinding with glory in His Resurrection. No need to specify whether such an arrival is going to create an atmosphere a little bit different from the moral and spiritual scrawniness of our own. The proof: as soon as there is communion, the habitual activities stop short. Those that are manual–we come to listen to Him who has just arrived; intellectual–the stream of our thoughts changes direction, we adopt the stream of His thoughts; psychological–preoccupations pass into superior occupations; voluntary–attentions are turned away from the natural and turned back toward the absolute. One is ready for anything. To love is to become love in drawing near to a loving being. Who is more loving than Christ? Our hidden dwelling is bathed in a new climate which responds to the instinctive expectations of our superior faculties. The Dwelling has become more our dwelling because He is there. We are more ourselves, and instead of being in a hurry to see Him leave like an outsider, we would like to see Him lengthen His visit: “Mane nobiscum, Domine.–Stay with us, O Lord.” Our heart goes back during the day to the Communion of the morning. His sacramental Presence passes away, but leaving after it the reality of His hidden or mystical Presence, which abides as long as the deliberate act of a mortal sin has not shown Him the door. The Eucharistic Visit has taken place. The sacramental stay has ended. But the definitive arrival has been realized. From Visitor He has become Guest, and from Guest He has become Friend, that is to say, He who stays in order to love and to be loved. It is for each one of us, then, to say to Him: “Dwell in me,” after He has said to us: “As I dwell in you.” To love is to have a will to permanence. How to go about better imitating, in our turn, His manner of introducing Himself into us: 1) Hide oneself in Him: bury in His luminous, unifying mentality the dividing contradictions of our own. Renounce our shortsighted views; cease to believe them absolute; shake off their tyranny. Breathe in deeply His eternal vision of existence. Breathe in deeply His liberating fragrances of Calvary. Assimilate entirely His redemptive program intellectually by His doctrine of the world; morally by His holiness THE ANGELUS • January 2007 www.angeluspress.org of life; socially by His anxiety to serve and save, and all that “in secret” without exhibitionism or affected pretension. 2) Be sincere like Him: welcome Him in our dwelling, having brushed the dust off the furniture by our contrition, of course, but without moving the furniture around to give Him the impression we know how to welcome in style, creating for oneself an artificial mentality of nouveau riche by simulating an artificial fervor for Him, an artificial enthusiasm, an artificial sanctity. He holds in horror all that is fabricated and prefabricated. He prefers to be welcomed in the stable. He feels at home there. The straw of our bad desires, the ass of our bad wills, the ox of our earthliness, our homeliness; the sincere, humble gratitude of a St. Joseph for having been invited to keep watch near Him; the purity of His mother’s desires. There He is in His dwelling. He prefers to be welcomed at Nazareth in a workshop, that of our efforts for Him, of our venial scratches because of Him, of our moral weariness, of our apostolic activities. He feels at home. “Dwell in Me.” He prefers to be welcomed in the open air, wherever our apostolic journeying finds us: on the road of our resolutions that His encounter allows us to fortify; in the crowd of our callings on which His passage allows us to impose silence, to listen to what He thinks; in the comings and goings of our apostolic dreams of influence and action, to which He brings the decision of the “Sequere Me.” There, too, He is at home. “Dwell with Me.” He prefers to be welcomed in the midst of our Calvary, during the agony of our distresses springing from our fears of not being able to hold on in the disdain of a reputation mocked or misunderstood, the scourging of a repentant sensibility, the crowning with thorns of a humiliating situation, the carrying of the cross of a meritorious existence, or the crucifixion of a life that cannot take any more. There most of all He recognizes Himself and finds Himself at home: “Dwell with Me. Make your dwelling with Me and near Me.” Then the Presence takes root and with it our habits of thought evolve most strangely; they acquire a strange lucidity over human philosophy, capable of judging it as Christ judged it and a strong serenity over the problem of existence, sure of its consummation as Christ was sure of His own. The Dwelling is truly inhabited by Him and by us. We return to our activities with His activities in us, so much so that in returning to our own we find that they are as much His as ours. There is no regret at having yielded Him the place, but regret at having yielded it to Him so late or so clumsily. Translated exclusively for Angelus Press from the Association du R. P. de Chivré’s Carnets Spirituels No.10, October 2006. Fr. Bernard-Marie de Chivré, O.P. (say: Sheave-ray´) was ordained in 1930. He was an ardent Thomist, student of Scripture, retreat master, and friend of Archbishop Lefebvre. He died in 1984. F R . p e t e r What kind of men does God call to the Brothers of the Society of Saint Pius X? One of the reasons why a strong, virile, thoughtful young man might shy away from a religious vocation is the feeling that the Brother’s life is horribly constraining, that it is made up of unbearable restrictions, that it stands in the way of being able to do as one wants, that it prevents one from developing one’s personality, that it stifles all natural feelings, that it makes one into little better than a slave, that it takes all the fun out of life and gives very little in return. Nothing, indeed, could be further from the truth. Far from hampering personal freedom, far from holding a man back in a state of puerile dependence, the religious state has the exact opposite objective, and truly accomplishes it. It is a state of perfection, in which a man commits himself to take the means necessary to strive for perfection every day. This is in fact what makes the religious free, free to make a total and perfect gift of himself, free from the obstacles of his own disordered attachments, free to love God, free to place the divine Honor, Glory and Holy Will over and above every created thing, free to make of himself “a sacrifice of perpetual praise to the divine majesty” (Brothers’ profession). The Religious Is Supremely Free Indeed, the religious who is not a priest has the ultimate freedom, for without the direct responsibility for others’ souls, he gives himself entirely to the striving for personal perfection through the living of the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. If the Church presumes the priest to be free through his detachment and through his consecration to God, the religious actually takes the means to become so. This is why the religious vocation is radically different from the priestly vocation, and why the religious is not at all to be considered as a man who does not have the aptitude for seminary studies and who cannot become a priest. His is quite simply a different vocation. The priest is consecrated to the service of the Church, so that no man has a right to priestly ordination. This is why it is the first duty of the Seminary Rector to exclude from ordination any seminarian who does not have the requisite learning, piety, and uprightness of life. However, every Catholic man has a right to the religious life, provided that he seeks it for the right reasons, uses it to strive for perfection, and has no impediments. Furthermore, if it is true that no religious can be lazy, some are more educated and others less so. There is absolutely nothing to stop a more educated Catholic who is not called to the priesthood from applying to enter the religious life. Indeed, it would be a great blessing for the Brothers of the Society to receive as vocations men with academic degrees, for it would enable the Brothers to play an even more active role in the education of boys. Thoughtfulness and Merit in the Religious By practicing obedience to the rule as to the will of God and to his superiors as to God’s representatives, the R . s c o t t 43 religious in no way loses his own will, nor do his acts become any less voluntary and meritworthy. Much to the contrary. For it is by his own generous sacrifice that he embraces the rule as the will of God, that he joyfully and generously sees in the commands of his superiors the manifestation of God’s plan of divine Providence for his life and activities. Indeed, just as the vow of poverty makes voluntary and meritworthy the religious’s state of possessing nothing of his own, so likewise does the vow of obedience make more willing and meritworthy everything that he does. The rule of life, including the divine office, prayers, meditation and common meals, is embraced as the signified will of God and the decisions of superiors as God’s will of good pleasure. However, in both cases the religious knows with absolute certainty the will of the Almighty, and this gives to his acts and duties a willingness impossible for those who are wandering uncertain, and often aimless, amongst the vagaries of the world. Nor is there anything childish about the Brother’s dependence. It is a whole and complete abandonment to the will of Almighty God. This is accomplished through the living of the vow of poverty, which is nothing less than the generous response to the invitation of our Divine Savior mentioned in the Brothers’ profession ceremony: If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come follow me. (Mt. 19:21) Truly, the religious life makes a man free. Nor is it to be thought that the religious life somehow discourages a man from thinking for himself or making his own decisions. Again, the truth is entirely the opposite. Obedience is not at all a blind virtue, and the religious learns to always consider the ultimate reasons for decisions and duties as they fall into God’s plan. The religious is thus trained in the virtue of prudence; namely, how to govern himself for heaven, and how to govern those for whom he is responsible. This requires the humble seeking of counsel both from his own spiritual director and from his superiors; it requires the ability to make the right judgments as to how to overcome his faults, bad habits, and disordered attachments, as well as to fulfill his duties; it requires, finally, follow-through, or the ability to execute both with respect to his own spiritual duties and with respect to his responsibilities for the apostolate and for the community. These are the three acts of prudence that the brother must be trained in, as a thinking man, without which he cannot be faithful to his vocation. The Joy of the Religious The practice of poverty and detachment, of willing and obedient submission, necessarily presupposes a community in which the religious lives, along with superiors and fellow religious. A community is both a mortification, as is any family life, but also and especially a great treasure, for it is a supernatural family that shares its life together. The community is indeed www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • January 2007 44 an incomparable consolation for the religious who has vanquished his self-centeredness. Archbishop Lefebvre had this to say about the Brothers’ living of community life when he wrote their rule: Let the Brothers make efforts to manifest in the community their profoundly religious spirit, one of silence, of union with God, of fraternal charity, of zeal to give service to others, but without neglecting the service of God. May all those whom they approach, and all those in the midst of whom they live, be edified by their behavior, and never disedified. Let them be like the guardian angels of our communities. (§20) There is certainly nothing inhibiting in such an ideal, nor could there be anything sad, depressing, or lonely about a community of men who share together the same magnanimity, who live side by side the absoluteness of self-sacrifice. Indeed, if natural family life is enjoyable and consoling, how much more is the supernatural family life that is open to the man who has willingly offered up the passing natural joys of this earth for the unchanging ones that will never perish. This is powerfully impressed upon the soul by the following counsel, also contained in the Brothers’ Rule, namely, that the Brothers strive to understand the profoundly supernatural nature of this life.…May they find in this conviction and in this reality, more heavenly than earthly, their unchangeable joy, their unceasing consolation, their steadfast serenity. (§§ 4, 5) Manliness in the Religious The modern world holds the mistaken idea that the man who is willing to make the vow of perpetual chastity is somehow lacking in virility, that he is less of a man, that he hates women, or is someone who finds it difficult to love, or who refuses to take the responsibility of supporting a family. Again, nothing could be further from the truth. Such a person, not a real man, could never be a candidate for the religious life. Furthermore, manliness is not just a prerequisite of the religious life, but the religious formation positively strives to develop and perfect it. Grace does not suppress nature, nor does the religious life suppress the manly desire to support, help, and cherish the weak, especially the sick and the elderly, women and children. But it does purify it from all disordered or selfcentered attachments, and it does encourage the elevation of the sensitivity by the appreciation of art, music, and beauty, starting with the Liturgy and Gregorian chant, in which all the Brothers are trained. Modern psychology uses the term sublimation for what it describes as a psychological process, without understanding any of the reality, considering it to be but the substitution of one emotion or interest in order to make up for the lack of another. However, in the etymological sense of tending towards the sublime, it is eminently true of the religious life. Far from suppressing natural feelings, life in community and the vow of chastity indeed elevate them to a much higher plane. They are not substituted for, but purified from the selfishness so easily inherent in purely human relationships. The religious is indeed indifferent with respect to himself, but he cannot afford to be with respect THE ANGELUS • January 2007 www.angeluspress.org to others. He must have a true concern, affection, and care for the members of his community, as for all souls with whom he enters into contact. Thus a Brother is in no way unmoved by suffering and hardship. To the contrary, he is very familiar with it, thanks to his constant meditation on the Passion of our Divine Savior. Without in any way denying the reality of human pain, he will constantly strive by his words and example to encourage others to sanctify it by offering it up in reparation for their sins and in union with our Divine Savior on the Cross. His human feelings find their perfection in their union with those of Our Lord. In this he learns to scrupulously avoid all particular friendship, destroying as it does any true community and undermining his ability to imitate Our Lord, who loves all without exception, “who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (I Tim 2:4). Sublimation it is, if by this is meant the lifting of the natural affections to the sublime affections of God truly made man, the bearing in one’s heart of His own love of truth and beauty, and of His hatred for the ugliness of sin. However, it is especially in the formation of a sense of responsibility that this manliness consists: responsibility for one’s own soul, for one’s spiritual family, for edifying one’s neighbor, and in the Seminary for the edification of the priests and major and minor seminarians. This sense of responsibility is characterized in particular by the manly moral virtue of fortitude, manifest in the strength of character of the mortified religious. The Brother constantly emulates the martyrs, who lived this virtue to perfection, for the religious life, a constant dying to oneself according to the words of St. Paul “I die daily” (I Cor. 15:31), is an ongoing martyrdom, as said St. Anthony of Egypt, disappointed when he could not endure the martyrdom of blood. This manly fortitude is manifest in his striving for perfection in the ordinary duties of state of every day. Who Is Called? I think, then, that it is clear what kind of men God calls to the religious life. It is not the weak, inconstant, effeminate who cannot make a go of it in the world, who do not have the desire to marry and raise a family. No, God calls to the religious life strong, virile, responsible men; men whose feelings, convictions, and passions are firm and unshakable, yet under control; men who would like to raise a family if it were the will of God, but men who would like much more to consecrate themselves to His service, to His honor and glory, if this is the will of God; men who would much prefer to joyfully and willingly “humbly ask for the favor of consecrating myself totally to God the Holy Trinity, to Our Lord Jesus Christ and to the Holy Church by the three vows of religion” (Brothers’ Profession). God is seeking those truly prudent men who are willing to devote all the energy of their manhood to striving for perfection, to the practice of the holy virtue of religion. Fr. Peter Scott was ordained by Archbishop Lefebvre in 1988. After assignments as seminary professor and the U.S. District Superior, he is currently the rector of Holy Cross Seminary in Goulburn, Australia. “Catechism of Religious Tolerance” (pp.30-36) Further Reading Libertas Praestantissimum On Human Liberty (Leo XIII, 1888) Modern man thinks liberty is the ability to do whatever one wants. The Church, however, teaches us that true liberty is the freedom to do good and practice virtue. Catholics are constantly attacked for wanting to restrict the freedom of others, when in fact the doctrine of Christ is what truly sets men free. We are not oppressors, but liberators. A “must read” for our times. Duties of the Catholic State in Regard to Religion Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani Cardinal Ottaviani, in a 1953 lecture, explains why the Church teaches that the State has the duty of professing the Catholic religion and that rulers are to insure that the moral principles of the True Religion inspire the social activity and the laws of the State. 26pp, softcover, STK# 1029Q $4.95 On the Kingship of Christ Pope Pius XI Issued in 1925, Pius XI proclaims the Feast of Christ the King and the nature of this Kingship. He shows the various ways by which Our Lord is a true king and the effects of this doctrine particularly on the the relationship between Church and State. This encyclical is NOT complicated and is essential reading for all serious Catholics. 23pp, STK# 5305. $1.25 They Have Uncrowned Him Religious Liberty Questioned Originally given as conferences to seminarians in Ecône, Archbishop Lefebvre exposes liberalism and modern philosophical errors in the Church and society from the viewpoint of 11 encyclicals by six popes of the last 150 years. Forms a commentary on some of the most important encyclicals of the last two centuries. In the simple style of his other popular work, Open Letter to Confused Catholics. The Summa of Archbishop Lefebvre. Covers the origins of liberalism, the subversion of orthodoxy by Vatican II, the decline of the missionary spirit by dialogue, the bad fruits of post-Conciliar reforms, and his vision of restoration. Includes Card. Ottaviani’s On the Relations Between Church and State and On Religious Tolerance, replaced at Vatican II by Dignitatis Humanae. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre 351pp, softcover, STK# 6710Q $14.95 34pp, STK# 6558Q $3.95 Quas Primas: ­Against the Heresies The Relation of Church and State Fr. Bede Jarrett, O.P. Today people invoke the non-existant constitutional principle of the “separation of Church and State” to inhibit the free exercise of religion. The tension between the authority of God and secular rulers has a long and winding history. Fr. Jarrett traces this struggle from antiquity and the early days of Christianity through the Middle Ages down to the Reformation. By this historical perspective, we can better understand the upheavals of our own day. 42pp. STK# 8190Q $4.00 The Second Vatican Council and Religious Liberty Michael Davies Thorough. Shows how Fr. John Courtney Murray maneuvered Vatican II to replace the Catholic doctrine on Church & State with a new teaching based on the American Constitution. Covers the defense of the traditional doctrine by Msgr. Joseph Fenton, Editor of The American Ecclesiastical Review. Appendices with the relevant encyclicals and documents. 350pp, color hardcover, STK# 3009. $23.00 Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre 264pp, softcover, STK# 5240Q $14.95 178pp, softcover, STK# 7060Q $12.95 Liberalism & Catholicism The Liberal Illusion As former professor of the Major Seminary of Rennes, France, Fr. Roussel was admired by Abp. Lefebvre, whom he influenced. A collection of conferences first given in Rome in 1926, now translated into English by Fr. Coenrad Daniels. It is impossible to understand the crisis in the Church, without seeing the liberal mindset which prepared the way. Catholics who read The Liberal Illusion will grasp that the current crisis is primarily due not to Vatican II, but to a centuries-long struggle between Revelation and Revolution. Vatican II was a decisive moment in that struggle when power within the Church passed from the servants of Revelation to the deluded victims of the Revolution. Each chapter is introduced by Bp. Richard Williamson’s commentary. Also includes his fold out study guide. Fr. A. Roussel, Ph.D. 155pp, softcover, STK# 6714Q $11.95 Cardinal Ratzinger invited Abp. Lefebvre to submit an official statement concerning his opposition to Vatican II's declaration on religious liberty. This is it. Abp. Lefebvre and Bp. Tissier de Mallerais explore the question of religious liberty, show what the Church has always taught, what the Second Vatican Council taught, and how they are contradictory. You, too, will be faced with a choice. And choose we must. Louis Veuillot 146pp, softcover, STK# 8147Q $12.95 2007 Liturgical Calendar W E N The 2007 Liturgical Calendar features 14 months (includes December 2006 and January 2008) to showcase one each of the 14 Stations of the Cross from Society of St. Pius X chapels from around the United States. Each Station is identified with the name of the church from which it came. But the most compelling reason to have a fourteen month calendar is to make the secular calendar dove-tail with the Church’s liturgical year. Secularly speaking, the first of the year is January 1. In the liturgical year, the first of the year is the first Sunday in Advent, which, this year, is December 3, 2006. So start the year(s) off right with the only liturgical calendar that starts at the beginning of the liturgical year! The Stations of the Cross, the Way of the Cross (Via Crucis), the Way of Sorrows (Via Dolorosa)– these are the names given to the traditional 14 images corresponding to particular incidents in the Passion of Christ. The object of the Via Crucis is to help the faithful make a pilgrimage in spirit to the chief scenes of Christ’s sufferings and death, the origin of which may be traced to the Holy Land where tradition says the Virgin Mary used to visit the sites of her Son’s Passion. No other devotion sponsored by the Catholic Church enables Catholics to so literally obey Christ’s injunction to take up their cross and follow Him. This year’s calendar features plenty of room for your notes and appointment reminders. It is large-holed for easy hanging! All the feast days of the year according to the 1962 Roman Missal are listed with class and liturgical color marked along with reminders of days of fast and abstinence. It also includes the latest directory of Latin Mass locations and traditional Catholic schools in the US and Canada. 10¾" x 10¾" Full color throughout, STK# CAL2007 $9.95 Shipping & Handling US Foreign $.01 to $10.00 $6.95 $11.95 $10.01 to $25.00 $8.95 $13.95 $25.01 to $50.00 $10.95 $15.95 $50.01 to $100.00 $12.95 $17.95 Over $100.00 13% of order 18% of order Airmail surcharge (in addition to above) Foreign 21% of subtotal. angelus Press 2915 Forest Avenue Kansas City, Missouri 64109 1-800-96ORDER 1-800-966-7337 www.angeluspress.org l 1-8 00-9 6 6-73 37 Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music.