“Instaurare omnia in Christo” War Military Service Today War and Peace Material Peace Is Too Vulgar September - October 2014 St. Louis led an exemplary life, bearing constantly in mind his mother’s words: “I would rather see you dead at my feet than guilty of a mortal sin.” His biographers have told us of the long hours he spent in prayer, fasting, and penance, without the knowledge of his subjects.... He was renowned for his charity. “The peace and blessings of the realm come to us through the poor,” he would say. Beggars were fed from his table, he ate their leavings, washed their feet, ministered to the wants of the lepers, and daily fed over one hundred poor. He founded many hospitals and houses. —The Catholic Encyclopedia Picture: Statue of St. Louis IX, Sainte Chapelle, Paris Letter from the Publisher “No more war. Stop the fighting. We have suffered too much to endure anymore of this!” This most human cry of mankind in the face of dreadful conflicts has been heard time and again over the centuries. Yet Christ the Lord said that He did not come to bring peace but war among his followers, speaking of the inner struggle between the kingdom of God and that of Satan. As much as we all abhor it, war will always be fashioning our history. The latest decade is no exception as wars and rumors of war and conflicts are flaring up in the Middle East, in Western Africa, and in the Eastern European continent, just to name a few. This is why this Angelus issue on war cannot elude the ever timely question of just war, and especially war as it is practiced in our modern age. And what are we to think of our younger generation readying itself to enlist in the military? Finally, in this issue, we wish to commemorate a few anniversaries of the year 2014 related to warriors: - The centenary of the beginning of WWI, with an historical article on why it was the bloodiest war ever seen up to that time. - The twelfth centenary of Charlemagne, the first Christian Roman Emperor, who died in 814. - It also celebrates the birth in 1214 of St. Louis IX, the great warrior and twice Crusader. Hence, however disturbing may be the prospect of facing battle or war, whether internal or external, it is expedient to Catholics to have the proper understanding of the moral principles behind war and the good examples of Christian men who served their country and God, since, in Job’s words, “man’s life on earth is a battle.” Fr. Jürgen Wegner Publisher September - October 2014 Volume XXXVII, Number 5 Publisher Fr. Jürgen Wegner Editor-in-Chief Mr. James Vogel Managing Editor Fr. Dominique Bourmaud Copy Editor Miss Anne Stinnett Design and Layout credo.creatie (Eindhoven, The Netherlands) Mr. Simon Townshend Director of Operations Mr. Brent Klaske Director of Marketing Mr. Jason Fabaz U.S. Foreign Countries Subscription Rates 1 year 2 years 3 years $45.00 $85.00 $120.00 $65.00 $125.00 $180.00 (inc. Canada and Mexico) All payments must be in U.S. funds only. Contents Letter from the Publisher 4 Theme: War ––Tactics and Casualties in World War I ––Military Service Today ––War and Peace ––Material Peace Is Too Vulgar 6 11 14 21 Faith and Morals ––God Will Provide! ––Chant Lesson from a Medieval Song School ––Pius XII’s 1942 Christmas Message ––Restoring the Integrity of Catholic Social Teaching 27 31 34 37 Spirituality ––Montjoie! Saint Denis! ––Reading St. John ––Book Review: To Build the City of God 40 44 47 Online subscriptions: $20.00/year. To subscribe visit: www.angelusonline.org. Register for free to access back issues 14 months and older. All subscribers to the print version of the magazine have full access to the online version. “Instaurare omnia in Christo” The Angelus (ISSN 10735003) is published bi-monthly under the patronage of St. Pius X and Mary, Queen of Angels. Publication office is located at PO Box 217, St. Marys, KS 66536. PH (816) 753-3150; FAX (816) 753-3557. Periodicals Postage Rates paid at Kansas City, MO. Manuscripts and letters to the editor are welcome and will be used at the discretion of the editors. The authors of the articles presented here are solely responsible for their judgments and opinions. Postmaster sends address changes to the address above. ©2014 BY ANGELUS PRESS. OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE PRIESTLY SOCIETY OF SAINT PIUS X FOR THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA Christian Culture ––History: Charlemagne ––Education: Sport and War ––Family Life: Trust in Divine Grace 50 55 59 News from Tradition – Questions and Answers – Church and World – Theological Studies – Letters to the Editor – The Last Word 64 69 76 84 87 Theme War The Will of the Offensive: Tactics and Casualties in World War I by Dr. John Dredger 6 1 Sources vary concerning exact numbers, with 37,000,000 tending towards the smaller estimates. The major powers included Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Great Britain, and Russia. 2 Again sources vary concerning exact numbers as debates among historians continue. These figures lean towards the higher estimates for the sake of comparison. As this article does not consist primarily in an argument for one source or another, I have taken the liberty of not citing the many sources concerning casualty statistics. 3 Fr. Paul Kramer, “FATIMA: The Impending Great Chastisement Revealed in The Angelus During the more than five years from August 1914 to November 1918, over 37,000,000 individuals suffered as casualties of World War I according to the official war records of the major powers. Of this immense number, at least 15,000,000 died, with 8-10,000,000 deaths stemming directly from military causes, especially artillery and machine guns, rather than disease and malnutrition.1 These figures comprise a significant departure from statistics of previous wars. For example, the Napoleonic Wars, which lasted from 1803 to 1815, over twice as long as the Great War, caused the deaths of approximately 7,000,000 people from all causes, while the American Civil War during a time frame similar to World War I resulted in roughly 1,500,000 total casualties.2 The question easily arises as to what caused the dramatic increase in casualties during the Great War. The obvious answer for a Catholic comes from Our Lady, who said that war constitutes a punishment for sin, and especially that World War I consisted in a scourge upon mankind for sins of blasphemy, work on Sunday, and the desecration of marriage.3 While this answer provides a reason for the overall cause of the Great War and its ensuing massive casualties on the spiritual level, more delving proves necessary to explain the death toll on September - October 2014 the Third Secret of Fatima,” The Fatima Crusader, Spring 2003. 4 Jack Snyder, The Ideology of the Offensive: Military Decision Making and the Disasters of 1914 (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1984), 16. 5 Williamson Murray and Richard Hart Sinnreich, The Past as Prologue: The Importance of History to the Military Profession (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 261. 6 Snyder, The Ideology of the Offensive, 16-17. 7 Snyder, The Ideology of the Offensive, 17. 8 Günther Kronenbitter, “Krieg im Frieden.” Die Führung der k.u.k. Armee und die Großmacht politik Österreich-Ungarns 19061914 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2003), 9-10. 9 John Dredger, “Offensive Spending: Tactics and Procurement in the Habsburg Military, 18661918” (Ph.D. dissertation, Kansas State University, 2013). the material level. For God does not force nations into war against the will of their political and military leaders. On the contrary, men make their own choices according to free will. What then caused the leaders of the great powers of World War I to engage in such a horrific bloodletting? The answer lies in the choice for offensive tactics that all military high commands made before the Great War. Every nation decided on the strategic and tactical offensive as the primary means of waging war for reasons belonging to each great power. This decision, however, also stemmed from causes common to all the high commands, especially in the overemphasis of the will as the decisive means of victory. Several examples of the thinking of the high commands in different nations will suffice to show why the great powers chose offensive strategies and tactics. In the years prior to the outbreak of World War I, French military leaders faced a government run by the Liberal party, which saw the traditional French army as a bastion of conservatism and desired to reduce it to an army of the people, or almost a militia. Realizing the need to find a reason for the continued existence of the traditional army, French military leaders looked to offensive strategy and tactics, the offensive outrance, as a means of war that only trained professional soldiers could perform.4 In Germany, no antagonism for the army arose from civilians or politicians, although Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the elder, who originated the German plans for World War I, famously said, “Politicians should fall silent when mobilization begins.”5 The penchant for the offensive stemmed from a desire to maintain the tradition and prestige of the German army by continuing to advocate the attack rather than the defense.6 In the minds of the German commanders as well as the rest of Europe’s military leaders, the great Prussian victories of 1866 against Austria-Hungary and 1870 over France had resulted from a devotion to offensive strategy and tactics. These victories had brought about the formation of the German Empire. How could the German high command during the Great War betray the successful Prussian tradition of Drang nach vorwärts by introducing a defensive mode of warfare? For Russia political considerations rendered the offensive necessary. Russian military leaders felt that the Tsar’s troops must provide as much help as possible to their beleaguered French allies because the primary German attack would take place against the French. In addition, the Russians desired to establish supremacy over Austria-Hungary in the Balkans, thus necessitating an offensive strategy to drive back Habsburg forces.7 The Austro-Hungarian high command saw the restoration of fallen Habsburg prestige as the main purpose of entering World War I and crushing Serbia to avenge the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne.8 Since 1866, when the Habsburg monarchy had suffered defeat at the hands of the Prussian army, Austria-Hungary had started to fall from the ranks of the great European powers. To prove that the Habsburg state still belonged among the first rate military nations, the Dual Monarchy’s high command adopted the following view: the strong only attacked, and as a great power, Austria-Hungary must attack as well. Any other strategy would show weakness, loss of prestige, and the sunken status of a second rate power.9 7 Theme War 8 10 Thilo von Trotha, “Tactical Studies on the Battles around Plevna,” translated by First Lieutenant Carl Reichmann U.S. Army (Kansas City, MO: HudsonKimberley Publishing Co., 1896), 210-211. 11 Bruce W. Menning, Bayonets Before Bullets: The Imperial Russian Army, 18611914 (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992), 60-74. 12 Geoffrey Wawro, Warfare and Society in Europe, 1792-1914 (New York: Routledge, 2000), 139-144. 13 Wawro, Warfare and Society in Europe, 17921914, 152-155. 14 Major des Geniestabes Alexander Kuchinka, “Vorträge. Der Kampf um Port Arthur,” Österreichische Militärische Zeitschrift 2 (1905): 892; Major des Generalstabscorps Maximilian Ritter von Hoen, “Der russisch-japanische Krieg,” Organ der militärwissenschaftlichen Vereine 70 (1905): 168-169. 15 Entwurf. Taktisches Reglement für die k.u.k. Fusstruppen. II. Heft. Gefecht. (Wien: k.k. Hofund Staatsdruckerei, 1909), KA Generalstab Operationsbüro, Karton Nr. 743, Exercierreglement und Entwurfe 1907-1911, 1-4, 12-13, 15. 16 Louis de Grandmaison, Deux conférences faites aux officiers de l’Étatmajor de l’armée, février 1911 : La notion de sûreté et l’engagement des grandes unités (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1911). 17 General Staff War Office, Field Service Regulations Part I. Operations (London: Harrison and Sons, 1909), 13. The Angelus Although each nation had individual reasons for assuming offensive strategy and tactics for the Great War, certain ideas influenced all the militaries as well. Obviously the high commands of all the European states advocated the supremacy of the attack over the defense. Yet the wars that took place in the decades leading up to World War I proved the defense as a superior method of warfare. At Plevna during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, Turkish defenders, though outnumbered almost 3 to 1, repulsed repeated Russian frontal assaults over a period of four months.10 Only the close investment of Plevna by the Russians, resulting in a siege rather than a pitched battle, and the subsequent shortage of supplies on the side of the Turks ended the engagement with a Russian victory.11 The Boer War (1899-1902) between Dutch settlers in South Africa and British forces likewise proved the advantages of the defense when attackers attempted to cross open ground in the face of entrenched troops using repeating rifles and machineguns. Heavy losses forced the British commanders to forbid costly frontal assaults and change their strategy and tactics.12 Similarly the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 showed the superiority of the defense. Japanese soldiers assaulted the Russian positions at Port Arthur six times between August and November 1904 while achieving nothing except excessive casualties for their own troops.13 In order to achieve victory, the Japanese had to resort to methodical siege tactics which brought about the capitulation of Port Arthur because the Russians ran out of ammunition and provisions.14 None of these wars gave proof of the advantages of offensive over defensive tactics. On the contrary, the events of these conflicts provided blatantly obvious examples of the superiority of forces employing the technological benefits of firepower and entrenchments. During the years immediately preceding the outbreak of the Great War, the advantages of the defense only increased because of the constant improvements in artillery, machineguns, and rifles that defensive troops in steady positions could use far more easily than moving attackers. Yet, instead of learning valuable lessons from the martial experiences of the conflicts preceding World War I, the high commands of every great power chose the offensive as the sole means of achieving victory. How could trained military minds rationalize such insanity? The answer lay in the overemphasis on the importance of morale and the will for victory. As the 1909 sketch for infantry tactical regulations of the Austro-Hungarian army stated: “An infantry filled with lust for attack, physically and psychologically persevering, well-trained and well-led will fight successfully against a numerically superior enemy.” Regarding morale the sketch spoke emphatically: “The strength of morale forms in war the most powerful driving force of all performance, it stimulates the use of the means of battle and is often of greater significance for success than the relationship of numbers and the skill of leadership.”15 The regulations of other European powers expressed the same ideas. Colonel Louis de Grandmaison, the author of the 1913 French Regulations for the Conduct of Major Formations, lectured that “it is more important to develop a conquering state of mind than to cavil about tactics.”16 Similarly the 1909 Field Service Regulations of the British army stated that, “Success in war depends more on moral than on physical qualities.”17 The common September - October 2014 18 Ian Hamilton, Compulsory Service, 2d ed. (London, 1911), 121. 19 Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 153. 20 Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, Zum Studium der Taktik. I. Theil: Einleitung und Infanterie (Vienna: L.W. Seidel & Sohn, 1891), 4, 14. theme among all the tactical writings of the great powers immediately preceding World War I resided in the idea of forming a stronger will than the enemy. As General Sir Ian Hamilton wrote in 1911, “War is essentially the triumph….of one will over a weaker will.”18 This overemphasis on the will stemmed from the leading philosophies of the decades before the Great War: existentialism, especially the version of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and Social Darwinism. In 1886 Nietzsche wrote in Beyond Good and Evil that “life itself is essentially a process of appropriating, injuring, overpowering the alien and the weaker, oppressing, being harsh, imposing your own form, incorporating, and at least, the very least, exploiting… It [a living body] will have to be the embodiment of will to power, it will want to grow, spread, grab, win Friedrich Nietzsche Conrad von Hötzendorf Henri Bergson dominance, —not out of any morality or immorality, but because it is alive, and because life is precisely will to power.”19 Austro-Hungarian military authors began using the phrase Wille zum Siege, “will to victory,” in 1906, the same year that the second edition of Nietzsche’s Der Wille zur Macht (The Will to Power) came into publication. The concept of the “will to power” in a military sense meant the desire to overpower the enemy by means of superior morale. This idea coincided perfectly with the views of the de facto Habsburg commander-in-chief, Conrad von Hötzendorf.20 The 1909 sketch for infantry regulations used 9 Theme War 21 Entwurf. Taktisches Reglement für die k.u.k. Fusstruppen. II. Heft. Gefecht. (Wien: k.k. Hofund Staatsdruckerei, 1909), KA Generalstab Operationsbüro, Karton Nr. 743, Exercierreglement und Entwurfe 1907-1911, 1-4, 1213, 15. 22 Major Wilde, “Die Technik des Infanterieangriffes auf Grund reglementarischer Bestimmungen,” ÖMZ 2 (1910): 1521. 23 Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Der Wille zum Sieg und andere Aufsätze (München: Hugo Bruckmann, 1918). 24 Michael Howard, “Men against Fire: The Doctrine of the Offensive in 1914,” in Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 521. 25 Dieter Hackl, “Der Offensivgeist des Conrad von Hötzendorf,” (Mag. Phil. Diplomarbeit, Universität Wien, 2009), 107. 26 Stephen van Evera, “The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War,” International Security, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Summer, 1994), 62-63. the phrase Wille zu siegen as one of the all-important means of spurring the troops on to self-sacrifice, perseverance, and a spirit of enterprise.21 As one Austro-Hungarian major said, “The attacker’s senses and striving culminate in the strong will: forwards to the enemy, cost what it will.”22 Nietzsche’s existentialist philosophy infected more of Europe than merely the Habsburg Empire. The English-born yet pro-German writer Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who during the First World War wrote a series of essays entitled Der Wille zum Sieg und andere Aufsätze (The Will to Victory and Other Essays), expressed the same views as the Austro-Hungarian army.23 The French philosopher Henri Bergson diffused Nietzschean concepts while lecturing at the Sorbonne.24 Similarly, the writings of pre-World War I military authors from various European nations echoed the ideas of Nietzsche, as the preceding quotations, especially from the army regulations, affirm. Likewise, Social Darwinism, the application of Charles Darwin’s concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to politics and sociology, gained much acceptance among military thinkers in the years before the Great War. Conrad von Hötzendorf firmly maintained that the offensive spirit of attack resided in soldiers who had stronger wills than the enemy and thus ensured survival and victory over weaker opponents.25 This same idea resounded throughout the works of leading military and political thinkers preceding World War I.26 Thus, fallacious philosophical concepts of the superiority of willpower and natural selection instilled ideas of offensive superiority in the commanders of the Great War. These false ideas led to millions of casualties as the generals ordered attack after attack even after suffering atrocious losses in early campaigns. The justice of God punished mankind for sin during the First World War, but not without the free decisions of military leaders to adopt erroneous concepts and apply them to combat. Certainly mankind had to atone for working on Sunday, desecrating marriage, and blaspheming, but also for replacing truth with Social Darwinism and the existentialist error of asserting the supremacy of the will over the intellect. Dr. John A. Dredger currently holds the position of vice-principal at Assumption Academy in Walton, KY, with over 20 years of experience in education from primary school to university. He obtained a BA in Education from St. Mary’s College, an MA in Classical Languages from the University of Kansas, and a PhD in History from Kansas State University. 10 The Angelus September - October 2014 Military Service Today by Colonel X Is service in the U.S. military still an acceptable choice for Catholics? I have been asked this question by young Catholics—and sometimes by their parents—who are considering service in the U.S. military. Typical concerns fall into four categories: -- the general moral climate within the military, -- the possibility of being sent to war, -- the compulsion to execute illegal orders or to serve in an unjust war, -- and the impact of military service on family life. This article will briefly examine each of these questions and provide some insight based on more than 20 years of active duty service. Unfortunately, because the U.S. military is an organization of enormous breadth, there is not a clear yes or no I can offer to inquiring Catholics. It will be necessary to generalize somewhat, and then leave it to your judgment if you are presented with the details of a specific opportunity for service. First, one should consider military service to be, of its nature, an honorable profession. Soldiers are depicted in the Gospel under a generally favorable light; nowhere in the Gospel does Our Lord criticize or condemn soldiers. The centurion’s Domine, non sum dignus is included in the very Canon of the Mass. The conversion of the Roman soldier Longinus is traditionally viewed as among the very first fruits of Our Lord’s Passion. Indeed, the idea of offering oneself up for something larger than oneself is inherently a noble act, which, of course, echoes Our Lord’s own Sacrifice. This does not mean, however, that all soldiers in all times have been honorable, or have fought for justifiable causes. Discernment is critical. 11 Theme War General Moral Climate From a distance, it might appear as if the U.S. military is becoming the lead organization in a social revolution. In recent years, civilian leadership has imposed certain ideological projects on the military, such as absolute gender equality and the official sanctioning of homosexualism. Without a doubt, these initiatives have made some inroads into a military culture that has hitherto seen itself oriented solely towards fighting and defeating an armed enemy, not as a vehicle for social change. However, you should not overestimate the impact of social engineering initiatives on the U.S. military. Beneath its politically neutral and officially secular veneer runs a deep strain of political and moral conservatism that has silently resisted and partially blunted social engineering. In practice, the actual impact of these initiatives on a military member is limited to an occasional mandatory training session (usually of overwhelming banality), which is usually met with subtle eye-rolling, frustration at the waste of time, and unenthusiastic compliance. To be sure, within some military sub-cultures there are pockets of social activism, but these tend to be overridden by the powerful and dominant conservative military culture. Additionally, when you consider the overall moral climate within the military, ask yourself: compared to what? Politically correct policies, social indoctrination, “alternative” lifestyles: there are few corporations, businesses, sports teams, or other organizations in the U.S. today where you can completely escape these trends. In terms of overall moral climate, the military compares well against many other career fields. Will You Be Sent to War? Probably, yes. For the last half century, the United States has been involved in nearly continuous warfare. The future promises more of the same. The fact is, however, that in the long, simmering, irregular, and proxy wars we have fought recently, only a small percentage of military personnel are exposed to actual danger 12 The Angelus September - October 2014 —ground combat units, special forces, helicopter pilots—and the casualty rate among these units has been quite low by historical standards. If you are in a support unit, such as logistics, supply, communications, or intelligence; or on a ship or submarine; or in any of a number of air, space, or maritime units, you are likely to be far removed from the battlefield. The danger of injury or death is always there, but you are more likely to be injured or killed in a training accident than by enemy action. However, in the case of a full scale, state-onstate war (against Russia or China, for example), all bets are off. Such a conflict is likely to be highly destructive with global effects. In this case, you may not be immune from the war’s impacts, including death and destruction, even if you are sitting in your kitchen in Anytown, USA. Paradoxically, you actually may be safer in a military unit, equipped and resourced for survivability under extreme conditions, than you would be as a civilian. At any rate, Catholics should not shrink from the duty of defending the nation, despite the risk of death. Duty in war is the fulfillment of the military’s essential purpose. The deeper question may be, am I risking myself truly to defend the nation? Or am I risking myself in the conduct of an “optional” war of discretion, not one of necessity? Illegal Orders and Unjust Wars I have never been given an illegal or immoral order, nor do I know anyone else who has. The U.S. military adheres scrupulously to the Law of Armed Conflict and other international standards that govern the legality and proportionality of armed force. The authorities and rules of engagement that govern the use of force are drawn directly from U.S. legal codes, not from the whims of a commander, not even from the commanderin-chief. (This is why presidents and other policy makers have often turned to other government agencies to execute operations that may be of debatable legality or questionable morality.) The professional code of ethics among officers is so deep and permeating, that departures from those standards (My Lai, Abu Ghraib, etc.) are shocking. In my opinion, it would be quite extraordinary for the U.S. military today to depart from its legal and Constitutional bases, or from its professional ethics, in the conduct of war. When the military has done so, it is viewed universally as an aberration, methodically investigated, and those responsible held accountable. The just war question is not as clear-cut. The military does not decide whether to go to war; the president or Congress does. One can reasonably debate whether some of the numerous interventions and conflicts the United States has undertaken in recent years have met the Catholic criteria for a just war. In many cases, technology has enabled distant adversaries to threaten the United States itself, causing leaders to calculate that intervention abroad is a form of pre-emptive defense of the homeland. There is a great deal of subjective judgment to be applied here; much depends on your view of an imminent threat, and of the consequences of inaction. This article is not the space to analyze each of our recent wars against just war criteria. If this is a matter of conscience for the individual Catholic, then he should make an informed assessment before committing to military service. Catholic moralists always presume the justice of the war, given the fact that soldiers and inferior officials are scarcely able to judge competently. Moreover, once you are in uniform, it becomes very difficult to opt out of a war that may be unjust. In questionable wars, deferral to the judgment of superiors, rather than a decision to desert, is probably the best course of action. It is certainly true that a soldier can act morally and justly even within the larger context of an unjust war. He may provide medical care or other humanitarian assistance, for example, or search and rescue. He may even find himself in a position to mitigate non-combatant casualties or limit collateral damage. to emphasize the importance of the military member and his family, the mission always takes precedence over family considerations. This means, in practice, the military member will spend lots of time away from home for training and deployments. The schedule will change continuously. There will be numerous family moves, on average of once every 2-3 years, and often with little choice of location. The frequent moves require a continual assessment of school options for the children, not to mention the possibility of having to travel far to the nearest Mass. It can be an exciting life, but it is inherently unstable. A strong marriage and a very supportive spouse are necessary. If marriage is an important near-term goal for you, you must ensure that you and your future spouse are cleareyed about the reality of military life. Final Thoughts Military service can help to form a young man with habits of discipline and self-sacrifice. However, military life makes unique demands. The military is a world unto itself, with a distinct culture, rules, and way of life, and you cannot easily “quit” if you find that continued service clashes with your Faith or personal plans. For these reasons, I strongly recommend you take the time to deliberate, and consult your parents, your priest, and others who know you well. A well-instructed Catholic of solid character, who has weighed the various aspects of contemporary military life and elected to serve, will undoubtedly serve his Nation honorably, avoid moral harm, while providing a shining example of the Faith to other service members. Colonel X is an active duty special forces officer with well over 20 years of service, including multiple combat tours. Family Considerations There is no sugarcoating it: military life is very difficult on families. Although leaders take pains 13 Theme War War and Peace by Fr. Jean-Baptist Guyon 1 The knowledge of one thing helps to understand its opposite, for it contains in itself the negation of the other. For example, the term cold rejects irreducibly anything related to the term heat; by striving to define cold the intellect invariably advances in the knowledge of heat, that is to say, what is not cold (St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Metaphysics, Bk. 3, lect. 4, no. 3. The history of mankind is an endless alternation of peace and war. But ultimately, what is war? And what is the essence of peace? What are the conditions for just war or lasting peace? Without clear answers to these questions no one can seriously begin to reflect upon such serious topics. Common sense rightly opposes the two terms war and peace. War is the contrary of peace, and vice versa. Now, quite logically,1 in order to come to an understanding of one thing it often helps to study its opposite, which amounts to saying that a deeper understanding of the notion of war can be of great help to understanding better what peace is. And so, in the first part we shall define the notion of war so as to bring into relief the idea of peace in all its plenitude. Then we shall show that war, though not always evil in and of itself and sometimes a legitimate means, always ushers in countless evils, such that peace, the remedy to these evils, must be sought, the theme of the third part. War Before defining war, it behooves us to turn toward the cradle of wisdom, 14 The Angelus September - October 2014 2 Introduction, Elements of Philosophy (Téqui, n.d.), Vol. 1. 3 Fragments, No. 44, tr. G. W. T. Patrick (http:// classicpersuasion.org/pw/ heraclitus/herpate.htm). 4 Book XI, Ch. 26. 5 Summa Theologica, II-II, Q. 42, Art. 1. the ancient Greek world, for, as Jacques Maritain observed, Greece is the only place in Antiquity where the wisdom of man found its way and human reason attained force and maturity.2 In ancient Greek thought, the term for war, polemos, whence derives the word polemic, occupies a fundamental place. Heraclitus of Ephesus, a philosopher from the end of the sixth century B.C., did not hesitate to coin this still-quoted aphorism: “War is the father and king of all.”3 Beyond the notion of armed conflict, which is but one, albeit the most visible, expression of war, the Greeks conceived the notion of polemos more broadly, seeing in it the logic of strife and conflict that exists in all things, particularly in the affairs of men and in human relations. Far from limiting polemos to bellicosity, the Greek world observed in all simplicity and disingenuous wisdom that “getting along”—be it in a family or in a city—is the result of an apprenticeship in which people strive to live with others through the contrarieties, strife, and conflicts that come along and that must be gradually overcome. Isn’t it commonly observed that an adolescent “forges” his personality through the opposition he meets with at home and at school. Here, then, is the first sense, quite broad, of the polemos of the Greeks which we translate by war. This way of seeing things already suggests a reflection: If war in the broad sense, such as Heraclitus describes it, is, in the actual state of human nature, an unavoidable given, then the establishment of universal peace here below takes on an illusory character, even if more peace is desirable. Hence, the Greek concept of polemos in and of itself eliminates the two extremes constituted by exaggerated bellicosity on the one hand and complacent pacifism on the other. A Pesto, Fame, et Bello... Leaving the Greek world, the cradle of ancient wisdom, we turn to the Christian West in order to advance our quest to define war. In the Catholic conception, war is considered as one of the great scourges of humanity: “A peste, fame, et bello, libera nos, Domine—from plague, famine, and war, deliver us, O Lord.” This supplication addressed to God in the Litany of Saints is very meaningful: war is associated with the worst disorders that can afflict our poor human race. Quite early, Vincent of Beauvais, in his Speculum Doctrinale, taught that the name for war, bellum in Latin, is derived from bellua, wild beast, because, he writes, “quite often those who wage war imitate the cruelty of wild beasts.”4 Abstracting from its grim reality, in the West war is considered from the aspect of law: it is the contention undertaken by the legitimately constituted authority of civil society against external enemies, which distinguishes it from all other kinds of conflict. Whence the traditional definition given by St. Thomas Aquinas: “war is, properly speaking, carried on against external foes, being as it were between one people and another, whereas strife is between one individual and another, or between few people on one side and few on the other side, while sedition, in its proper sense, is between mutually dissentient parts of one people, as when one part of the state rises in tumult against another part.”5 War is, then, by definition a state of strife and not a 15 Theme War simple quarrel between constituted societies who confront each other in the name of the common good. This first look at the notion of war will enable us to better elucidate the signification of peace. 6 De Alexandri magni fortuna, I, 6. 7 The Laws, I, 628 b. 8 A. Robert, Le Cantique des Cantiques (Paris, 1963), p. 145. 9 The City of God, Bk. 19, Ch. 13, § 1. Peace 10 Summa Theologica, II-II, Q. 29, Art. 4. 11 R. P. Hugon, St. Thomas d’Aquin et la guerre (Téqui, 1916), Ch. 1. The Greek word for peace is eiréné (whence the name Irene) , and designates the state of a nation which does not find itself at war with another. It has been said that in the Greek world peace was but a short, or rather negotiated, interruption of war, bringing us back to the inevitability of war seen above. According to Plutarch, peace is “harmonization.”6 Peace treaties among the Greeks quite often associate peace and friendship, as Plato observed7: peace is not only a suspension of the state of war, but a preparation for the future, for it guaranties tranquility (esuchia), abundance, the cessation of pillaging, and finally a hope of prosperity. Peace, because it designates the state of society that is not caught up in the maelstrom of war and its train of devastation, also designates a certain organization of relations between citizens, a sort of social peace, one might say, opposed to discord and strife. Thus, in the Greek city were to be found “guardians of the peace” with the mission of assuring that nothing disrupt the orderly functioning of public services. Lastly, in a broader sense, eiréné designates the state of someone whose exterior tranquility is untroubled. Notably, what the Christian calls “interior peace” is not envisaged as such in Greek thought. It is in the Old Testament that the spiritualized notion of peace clearly appears: eiréné is the word that the translators of the Septuagint used to translate shalom, a term expressing “the state of one who lacks nothing and is undisturbed in his tranquility.”8 Whence it appears that it is in the religious domain that the notion of peace acquires its full scope. And so it is fitting to cite the Theologian so that he may tell us how he conceives of peace. Saint Augustine, in a lapidary phrase, defines peace as the “tranquility of order.”9 In other words, peace designates the state of repose resulting when everything is in its place, be it in man when the passions are subject to the will fortified by grace, or in civil society when everyone’s will is oriented and ordered to the common good. St. Thomas Aquinas, with his accustomed precision, goes further, making of peace an act of the highest virtue: charity.10 External Peace, Internal Peace The thought of St. Thomas incorporates and surpasses the Greeks’ analysis: peace is not only the absence of external strife; it is not even a simple accord between disparate wills; it necessitates as a condition the absolute concord of all the “affective motions” that can exist between men or even within one and the same individual.11 Peace of this kind requires that all sensible, affective movements of the soul be under the control of the will, and that the will in turn be docile to the movements of grace, of the Holy 16 The Angelus September - October 2014 Spirit; in other words, that the will be animated by a love of God so as to order all its human acts. Such is the order that results in interior peace. As for civic peace, it may be reasonably inferred that a perfect, lasting peace is not possible here on earth. At most the establishment of order among the wills of men may be the object of unrelenting efforts. Indeed, the duty of legitimately constituted authority is to assure this order within a society. However, when matters involve several fully constituted societies (namely, States), which by definition have no superior authority, then in the flux of circumstances, the established order that secures peace may be compromised: then it is the turn of conflict, of war, to enter in. A Necessary Evil? If the unbridled passions of men may occasion much strife and conflict within a society, how much more so when the conflict involves divers peoples and nations; assuredly, these conflicts will have far greater repercussions. It is these that are properly called war. St. Thomas was one of the first to systematize the notion of just war: “In order for a war to be just,” he writes, “a just cause is required, namely that those who are attacked, should be attacked because they deserve it on 17 Theme War 12 Summa Theologica, II-II, Q. 40, Art. 1. 13 “...war is waged in order that peace may be obtained. Therefore, even in waging war, cherish the spirit of a peacemaker, that, by conquering those whom you attack, you may lead them back to the advantages of peace...” (St. Augustine, Letter 189 to Boniface, online at newadvent.com). 14 Which constitutes what is called a moral or public person. 15 St. Robert Bellarmine, General Controversy: Of the members of the Church Militant in Opera Omnia (Naples, 1872), Vol. II, p. 327. 16 Migne, Patrologia Latina, Vol. 16, cols. 81-84. 17 Ibid., Vol. 182, col. 924. 18 Ibid., Vol. 1, cols. 295, 491. 19 Letters, Bk. 1, Letter 2. account of some fault [against justice].”12 War thus envisaged is not contrary to the natural law. In other words, it is not intrinsically evil. Sometimes, in effect, it is the only way a State can guarantee its own security and assure its existence against the unjust aggression of a neighboring State, or maintain respect for important rights which cannot be relinquished without grave prejudice to the common good.13 Now, just as it is lawful for an individual to repel, even by violence, an unjust aggressor threatening one’s life (or that of one’s relatives or friends), or honor, or goods, all the more so is it lawful for a society.14 The authority in such a society has the right, and sometimes the duty, to employ the means of war so as to safeguard the common weal of this society. Note that this right extends not only to defensive war, but also offensive war, made necessary by the actions of a neighboring State whose ambitious machinations would constitute a genuine danger.15 This theory of just war is not contrary to the law of charity: supernatural love of God and neighbor can legitimize a conflict the goal of which is to re-establish the rights of one or the other. War, then, is closely connected with the virtues of justice and charity, so much so that the Fathers of the Western Church did not hesitate to consider war a school of virtue and merit: thus, St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan—a former military man it is true—places martial bravery among the virtues.16 The gentle St. Bernard writes that the soldier fighting in a just war merits heaven.17 The austere Tertullian, in his Apology, affirms for his part that the military state is in nowise incompatible with virtue and Christian holiness.18 If it is true that in certain texts, several of the Fathers of the early centuries of the Christian era condemn Christians who earn their living by war-craft, it is more because of the danger to faith that might be occasioned by fighting in close quarters with pagans, and obeying the emperor’s orders even when he was persecuting Christians. Even though it may be just and elicit the noblest dedication in the service of Christian virtues, war nonetheless remains an evil the calamitous consequences of which often weigh heavily on men’s shoulders. The pagans themselves had no illusions about the nature of war: thus Horace astutely wrote that because of armed conflicts, “At all times, the multitude have been subjected to the stupidities of the great.”19 From Adam to Cain For the theologian, in effect, war constitutes one of the most disastrous consequences of original sin. Before Adam’s fall, man lived in the profound peace resulting from the perfect harmony that existed among the faculties of a soul entirely subject to God—what St. Thomas Aquinas calls the state of original justice. In the perpetuation of the species, man’s vocation was to transmit this harmony to his posterity, which would have guaranteed peace among all. But original sin, contracted by every human being and the wounds of which still remain after baptism, erased in a certain way the Divine plan, leaving open the door to disorders and fights—in a word, to war. Ferocious warfare has been present from the dawn of human history, and as the notion of the rights of others diminishes in the minds of men, 18 The Angelus September - October 2014 the more they have recourse to violence to resolve disputes. In many cases, might unfortunately makes right. And when no moral principle is strong enough to resist the excesses of might, then the rights of the vanquished are trampled under by the victors: Vae victis, woe to the vanquished, as the ancient Romans coldly put it. Hence the urgency for societies to seek the establishment of true peace. “Happiness Is Peace” Because it results from good order among men within the same State or, at the international level, among different States, peace ought to be secured by those responsible for order within society. When it comes to the interior peace of a country, all those entities able to concur in reconciling the wills of men are mobilized to securing peace: the family first of all. Even though it is dependent on civil society, it is in the family that this basic tendency emerges, and where the minds and wills of children are educated in the true, the beautiful, and the good. Civil society in the natural order has the paramount duty to see to it that the social fabric, this ensemble of human interrelationships among men, should be regulated as well as possible: the civil authorities, but also the relevant intermediary institutions are in a position to see to a just distribution of goods, a source of social peace. Finally, the religious society, in the supernatural order, that is, the Church, is also a factor for peace, for she unceasingly sets before the eyes of civil society, by preaching and by daily example, the supernatural end to which everyone is actually called by God. At the international level, the difficulty of establishing a lasting peace comes about because of the absence on the natural level of a regulatory authority exercising adequate, uniform influence over all societies; recourse is made to various resolutions or international treaties for the purpose of guaranteeing or recovering peace. In this area, too, the role of the Church, the only international society in the supernatural order, is preponderant, and it is not by chance that the diplomacy of the Holy See is one of the most effective in the world. Translated from “Guerre et paix,” Fideliter, Jan.-Feb. 2012, pp. 6-14. 19 35 pp. – Softcover – STK# 1029 – $5.95 Duties of the Catholic State Justice and reason forbid the State to be godless 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. This is the true Catholic doctrine trampled upon by the Vatican II document Dignitatis Humanae. www.angeluspress.org — 1-800-966-7337 Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music. Material Peace Is Too Vulgar by Fr. Philippe Toulza, SSPX Is the Church in the 21st century in a position to promote peace despite the growing hostility directed toward her? Isn’t some kind of compromise with modern, purely philanthropic ideals (Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood, Tolerance, etc.) in order so as to preserve what vestiges of peace remain by abandoning Church teaching, which in fact is no longer being received? To this suggestion we reply categorically, No. Despite world-wide secularization, the Church preserves intact the remedies to today’s conflicts. But in the present circumstances, the Church invariably encounters the hostility of secular, materialist societies. Yet Catholics are not thereby condemned to inaction in social and political matters. To help the Church achieve the work of peace, the Catholic attitude entails giving the Church her due credit, while keeping in mind the following realities. Matter without Materialism First of all, it should be kept in mind that a de-Christianized society may be maintaining material peace (good order in the physical realm, the 21 Theme War 1 Such, for example, were the Wars of the Vendée during the French Revolution. 2 Cardinal Pie, “Pastoral Instruction on Peace, Lent 1864” in Works [French], Vol. V, pp. 315-334. 3 St. Pius X, Encyclical Editae Saepe, May 26, 1910, §42. physical security of its citizens) while promoting a materialist ideology. Without deceiving oneself as to the precariousness of such a peace, whatever there is of good in it should be used for the good of the Church. The Catholic attitude is to combat materialism without considering it a duty to overthrow the reigning material peace, but rather to bolster it. Material disorder is of such little advantage to the interests of religion that it cannot be envisaged except as a last and final recourse for the sake of legitimate defense.1 As Cardinal Pie explained: “Material peace...is undoubtedly too vulgar and also too precarious to satisfy us entirely; even so, for all that, it is still quite an appreciable good.” The Bishop of Poitiers goes on the quote St. Augustine: “At bottom, this people turned away from God is an unhappy people. Nevertheless, it loves a certain peace that should not be underestimated, and peace that is its own peace; a peace which it will not enjoy in the end because it does not make good use of it before the end. But that it enjoy it in this life is in our own interest; for, so long as the two cities are intermingled, we profit for our own peace from the peace of Babylon, considering that, if the people of God is freed from the other by faith, it is still condemned to sojourn there as a pilgrim. That is why the Apostle exhorts the Church to pray for kings and potentates ‘so that,’ he says, ‘our life may be spent peacefully and tranquilly in all piety and charity.’ ”2 This means concretely that the Church is neither terrorist nor revolutionary, as were (and still are) the Masonic sects. Confronted by a hostile society, it pursues its work of salvation without ever seeking social or political disorder. Force But, and this is the second reality to bear in mind, the Church is frank: it is not afraid of telling the truth and denouncing impiety. That is why the Catholic citizen will be an artisan of genuine peace insofar as he firmly maintains Catholic dogma without allowing himself to be seduced by the Masonic illusions upon which present-day societies have been founded. These Masonic principles are not apt to make men virtuous because they undermine virtue (or, more exactly, they call virtue any individual or collective action that does not “harm” others), and refuse to God the right to teach men. Now, let us recall that without in-depth reformation of morals, no lasting peace is possible. Christian frankness, prudent and charitable, is more than ever necessary. For example, it will not hesitate to call a law authorizing abortion perverse, whether anyone likes it or not! The Christian attitude, consisting of candor but also respect for the natural social order, was well described by St. Pius X when he said, in 1910: “The Catholics of our days, together with their leaders, the Bishops... [should be] faithful to their duties of good citizenship. They must be as faithful in their loyalty and respect to ‘wicked rulers’ when their commands are just, as they are adamant in resisting their commands when unjust. They must remain as far from the impious rebellion of those who advocate sedition and revolt as they are from the subservience of those who accept as sacred the obviously wicked laws of perverse men....”3 22 The Angelus September - October 2014 4 Leo XIII, Letter “Nous ne voulons pas” of June 22, 1892, to Msgr. Fava, Bishop of Grenoble. Co-operation The third reality to keep in mind is the need to collaborate with nonChristians in the temporal order. This is what Pope Leo XIII wrote on this subject: “We mean that, while standing firm in the affirmation of dogma and free and clear of any compromise with error, Christian prudence will not reject, or, better, will know how win over the assistance, whether individual or especially social, of decent men.”4 It goes without saying that the closer the work in question is to things pertaining to the moral sphere, the more difficult such collaboration becomes because of the lack of conviction on the part of non-Catholics. But the common quest for a temporal, social good, even if it remains quite limited from the perspective of the Christian ideal, will have the effect of showing unbelievers the worth and credibility of Church teaching through the personal worth of Catholic citizens. It is in this way, in a measure depending on God and the personal holiness of Catholics, that the Church will be able to recover her good reputation, so odiously smeared, and will be able to carry on her work of peace. The de-Christianization of societies does not take way anything from the effectiveness of the supernatural means that indirectly cause the peace of nations. It only obliges Catholics themselves to adapt their attitude to the situation in light of the Church’s perennial teaching. Excerpted and translated from “L’Église, artisane de paix,” in Fideliter, Jan.-Feb. 2012, pp. 35-36. Fr. Phillipe Toulza was ordained in 1996. He taught theology at the seminary at Ecône, and has been the editor of the French District’s magazine Fideliter and of Éditions Clovis, the French Angelus Press, for about ten years. He resides at the French district house near Paris. 23 SSPX Pilgrimage to Lourdes, October 2014 10 CDs – STK# 8535 – $39.95 2011 Conference Audio: The Kingship of Christ Over the weekend of October 7-9, 2011, Angelus Press hosted its second annual conference on the theme of Our Lord Jesus Christ: The Kingship of Christ. With over 400 attendees from around the country (and some international visitors), some of the greatest minds and speakers convened to examine this doctrine from a variety of angles. The result was an amazing success as those in attendence learned about Christ’s Kingship and were spurred on to Catholic Action. -- The Social Kingship of Christ according to Cardinal Pie, by Fr. Juan-Carlos Iscara -- The Rosary and the Battle of Lepanto, by Andrew J. Clarendon -- The Relationship of Church and State, by Brian McCall -- Quas Primas—Pius XI on Christ the King, by Fr. Daniel Themann -- A Call for Today’s Crusade, by Fr. Gerard Beck -- The Queenship of Our Lady, by Fr. Albert -- Archbishop Lefebvre: A Life for Christ the King, by Bishop Tissier de Mallerais -- Catholic Action: Whose Job is it? by Bishop Tissier de Mallerais -- Conclusion and Farewell, by Fr. Arnaud Rostand -- The Errors of the Modern World, by Dr. John Rao Visit www.angeluspress.org — 1-800-966-7337 Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music. God Will Provide! by Fr. Dominique Bourmaud, SSPX “God will provide!” These words were the reply of a trembling father to his son asking who will take care of the victim for the sacrifice. Abraham going up Mount Moriah (the location of the present Temple of Jerusalem) almost choked with anguish as he spoke, simply fulfilling the strange command of God to sacrifice the son of the promise. This was certainly the Test (Sacred Scripture always uses the term “temptation” to mean test) which God imposed on him, and his “faith was reputed to him as justification.” This pivotal event in Bible history raises questions on the matter of Providence. If Abraham did provide one thing and God substituted for it something else, does that mean that God changed His mind? Could Abraham resist God’s formal command? Did God move his will with infallible knowledge and efficacy? Virtually any event in one’s life can raise such question on the workings of divine Providence. God Is Providence We Christians can hardly evoke God without thinking of Providence. He would be no God at all if He were an unproviding God, like the one described by Voltaire as caring no more for men than the ship’s captain cares for the rats in the lower deck. Providence touches on prudence and refers to the verb providere, which has two correlative meanings. In common language, providere translates as “to provide, to care for.” It evokes a certain order of things so as to direct the future in a good way. But pro-videre—to foresee— 27 Faith and Morals suggests also foresight or knowledge of the future. Providence has close ties with the idea of government. “O Lord, You govern all things by your Providence!” (Wisdom, 14:3). The subtle theologians explain that God’s providence compares to the divine government pretty much as the legislative power compares to the executive. Providence is the abstract plan in the lawgiver, and government is the practical putting into effect. God is provident, that is, He orders the destinies and orientation of all things, high and low, to their end, which is perfection of the universe. This succinct definition brings out some ele­ ments essential in the workings of providence. There is no providence without knowledge of all things under one’s care, and foreknowledge of the future. No more can there be providence without the command and power to direct things at will. This is what any CEO enjoys at the head of his company. God’s Ways and Men’s Ways Yet God’s management radically differs from that of an executive agent in a large factory. Our reason and our faith teach us that the destinies of each and all things are included in the First Intelligence. God knows all things because He causes the being, living, and acting of all things. God knows in as much as He has a bearing on being itself. Yet this raises the question of the future. How can God know what will be but is not yet being. The future is non-existent for us men, but it is part of the whole creation, which includes time and space and anything which has been, is, or will be. Sailors can tell the weather by looking at the sky, as they foresee the effects in the cause, but they cannot tell what their wives will do today since these ladies have not yet made up their mind. But what sailors do not know, God knows! God does not live in time, but above it. His knowledge of things is not successive and unfolding as the events unfold in real time. God sees His work in one simple and eternal gaze, as the mountain climber embraces at once many 28 The Angelus September - October 2014 things taking place in the valley before his eyes. Foreknowledge of things future is the first mandatory condition of providence. Yet God could not be provident unless He were also able and willing to provide. His word is a sovereign will which sets laws to creation: “He said, and they were made!” This divine will is not to be confused with the self-will of an arbitrary king. His power is just, loving, and merciful. He gives to each creature its due according to it nature. Each has its place in the whole orchestra of creation. After He lifted all things from the void, which is the supreme misery, His love provides them also with all their needs. Is Providence Unchanging? Although we have traced the blueprint for a well-geared providence, we soon come across serious difficulties as to its exercise. In this conception of divine government, all events in life are fixed, preordained as well as foreseen. If everything is subject to providence, nothing can escape from it anymore than God can escape from Himself. If everything is included in the book of life which contains our eternal destinies, all is written in marble. If it admits of no strikeout, no derogation, what happens to God and to man? Do they lose their freedom of action? Here, perhaps, the greatest objection comes from God’s standpoint. Reading the Scriptures, it seems as if God often did change His mind regarding man, as when He is said to have “repented of having created mankind” (Gen. 6:7), and repented of having made Saul king and sought for David to replace Him. These acts of repentance are metaphorical forms of language meaning His will to punish men for the sins He knew they would commit. God is immutable in that He knew everything which was to take place. And so He willed—or rather permitted, since the primitive Hebrew language does not have two such terms—the change of Saul from good to bad king. The difficult biblical texts can best be answered by stating the following: To will a change is not to change one’s will, but to incorporate the change itself within God’s allencompassing will. Grafted onto this seeming change in God’s will is the thorny question of man’s salvation. Some texts allude to universal salvation: “Christ died for all” and “we hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers” (I Tim. 2:4; 4:10). And others, on the contrary, will be damned, as we know from faith that not all men are saved: “many are called, but few are chosen.” Here is how the Church saves God from injustice: “That some are indeed saved is the gift of Him who saves them; but that some are in truth lost is the fault of those who perish” (Denz. 318). The answer to this quibble lies in distin­ guishing two moments in God’s will. Absolutely speaking or prior to the consideration of circum­ stances, God wishes the salvation of all men. But, conditionally—“if the sinner repents”—and in view of the concrete circumstances, God wills the unrepentant sinner to be punished forever. This is best explained by St. Thomas Aquinas: “Thus that a man should live is good; and that a man should be killed is evil, absolutely considered. But if in a particular case we add that, if a man is a murderer or dangerous to society, to kill him is a good; that he live is an evil. Hence it may be said of a just judge, that antecedently he wills all men to live; but consequently he wills the murderer to be hanged” (Summa, I, 19, 6 ad 1). Providence, Chance and Liberty Divine providence raises other major issues: chance and liberty particularly. Can one reconcile an all-encompassing providence with chance? If providence means order, any disorder is outside its reach and undoes it, or does it not? This is a 29 Faith and Morals black and white view, but reality admits another option. Chance is a fact of nature as much as necessity is a fact without which there would be no chance. Take an example. Rain necessarily falls upon earth; the grass necessarily grows: no room for chance here. But if it rains too much, the grass rots by chance because it does not occur usually according to the laws of nature. Both accidents and the laws of nature are complementary. Both are God’s children; both His servants and execute His providence. But does not foresight cancel the fortuitous encounter? Does not foreknowledge destroy chance? To think thus is to think things in human terms as we often babble as babies when dealing with God’s working in creation. God is Creator and, as He creates, He causes everything in His creature, not only its existence and DNA, but also all of its properties, high and low, some necessary, some fortuitous, as that a man be born blind, too tall, or redheaded. In other words, God’s will produces not only its effects, but also the very manner in which the effect takes place, some necessarily, some others by chance. One example will clarify this principle. Let us suppose that, suddenly, God creates before us a workshop where we see a weaver sitting at his loom and making his material. God has created everything: thus, He is responsible for all of it, including details. Show the walls, show the craftsman, show the loom and the frame, show the material which is being produced and show the final product: everything bears God’s signature. Does this prevent the man from dealing, not only with things necessarily connected with his trade, but also with some chance events which he will have to set straight? Everything functions as if there were no God, and perhaps he does not think of it, which is so often our own case. But, without God, there would be nothing. He sets all things in existence. But doing so, He does not perturb the running of things because His action is over and above that of creatures and man. Liberty falls into the same principle mentioned for chance: God’s will produces not only its effects, but also the very manner in which the effect takes place. All intelligent creatures, angels and men, are necessarily endowed with freedom: 30 The Angelus September - October 2014 they cannot choose to be free! Yet here again, God’s activity does not prevent man’s liberty. Let us return to our previous example. My complete workshop immediately created by God contains some freedom at work. The craftsman is working freely, as freely as if God did not exist. Yet God creates him in every instant, at every step of his thought and will, in all the moments of his acts. In other words, far from restricting his freedom, God’s causality is the ultimate cause of it. It is because God creates him that man exists. It is because God makes him a man that he is a human being. It is because God creates him free that he can make decisions. It is because God creates him actually using his freedom that he is acting freely. This Christian view of providence suggests a God quite distinct from, say, the Moslem God, Buddha, or the Hindu Shiva. Ours is a paternal God, “Our Father,” who watches over and cares for His creatures without taking anything away from their talents and perfections. His creatures act in various ways. Some exist shut up within themselves, content to exist in their cocoon, others are more active. Man is enjoying the ability to move things within and without. He has been endowed with the ability to work on other creatures more than any animal has. He is gifted with the dignity of cause and teacher and master. All animals follow blindly their inborn instinct; man acts freely. But freedom in man, synonym of responsibility and decision, is the gateway to a moral life which is open upwards as well as it can lead downwards, and to merit actual graces and even his eternal salvation. Human freedom means huge risks, but the rewards are also proportionate to the stakes. Fr. Dominique Bourmaud has spent the past 26 years teaching at the Society seminaries in America, Argentina, and Australia. He is presently stationed at St. Vincent’s Priory, Kansas City, where he is in charge of the priests’ training program. Chant Lesson from a Medieval Song School by Fr. Thomas Hufford, SSPX The arts reveal the standards of an age. The architecture and painting that survive from the Middle Ages, for example, show us what it meant to build well and to paint well. The beautiful illuminated letters and calligraphy that enshrine the Gregorian compositions—and of course the compositions themselves—also testify to a level of excellence. Unlike those enduring works, actual renditions of Gregorian chants have gone the way of all laughter and song, and so the medieval standards of performance are not provided for us in the same way. But something of what the master of music would expect from his students is known to us through various writings about chant. These sources serve as our windows to the medieval chant class; through them we can learn something about what it meant to sing well. “A Man Ought to Sing Well.” Mirrored in some of the medieval sources is a tendency common to our own time, namely that a reference to singing well may point to technical matters, such as good sound quality and accuracy. The tenth-century blessed Odo of Cluny, for example, works accuracy into the very definition of music: “Music is the knowledge of how to sing accurately, and the direct and easy path toward the perfection of that skill.” There cannot be a strong, clear, and expressive rendering of a sung text without some measure of skill, and chant masters of old cultivated it. Numerous authorities, however, give greater weight to qualities other than technical mastery. The sixth-century Council of Vaison, for example, declared that the Kyrie should 31 Faith and Morals “be sung frequently with great affection and compunction.” We should not imagine that this instruction refers only to an interior sentiment; surely we have to hear something of the affection and the compunction. St. Thomas’s thought on how to sing well appears in his commentary on Isaiah, who wrote in one of his verses, “sing well.” Here are St. Thomas’s words: “A man ought to sing well, first, cheerfully: ‘Let the praise to our God be joyful.’ Secondly, attentively: ‘...I will sing with the spirit, I will sing also with the understanding.’ Thirdly, devoutly: ‘The people offered sacrifices and praises with a devout mind.’” So the Thomistic method of chant is to sing hilariter, attente, ac devote: cheerfully, attentively, and devoutly. In the medieval mind, the prayer and the sacred art are so united in the singing of the chant that the instructions delivered to us often serve both aspects. Blessed Fra Angelico kept a similar rule in painting and passed his thought on to us in a concise formula: “...to paint the things of Christ, one must live with Christ.” We can assume that the medieval master would remind his students, if he needed to, that to perform the chant well we have to pray it, in Christ. From the side of art, to sing cheerfully, attentively, and devoutly will also enhance the beauty of the chant, especially in choir, where good singers listen well and respond to each other. A non-medieval source, Catholic Church Music by Richard Terry (1865-1938), confirms the value of cheer and good attention, though in negative terms, as you shall read. He arrived at this conclusion through his experience as a choirmaster, working daily on getting choral music performance-ready, and on technical things like good sound production. Here Terry advises choir directors who are in a position to select new boys, ages 9-11. Since some boys are naturally disposed to be more cheerful and focused than others, and since those qualities make a big difference in the work of a choir, he would exclude the others, without blaming them, of course, but without really even considering their audition: “Reject dull, sulky, or scatter-brained boys, since it is hard to say which of the three has the most demoralising effect on his more willing companions. A great orchestral conductor once 32 The Angelus September - October 2014 said: ‘A band of 100 professionals is a good band; a band of 99 professionals and one amateur is a bad band.’ In like manner, one sulky boy will infect a whole choir to its detriment with his particular disease more easily than is generally supposed. The amount of time spent on one dull boy will keep a number of intelligent boys back quite sufficiently to make them lose heart in their work. One scatter-brained boy in a choir will infect the others with habits of carelessness to an extent out of all proportion to his personal influence.” What If We Don’t Want To? A music teacher can testify to the value of a good mood, especially if he has ever had the contrary experience of working with a class of young people who are collectively unmotivated or sullen for some small reason. The most cheerful melody becomes somber, dreary, and pathetic. But what if we don’t feel like singing? The song itself is therapeutic, according to St. Bede: “Drive away the harmful disease of sadness from your heart by the frequent sweetness of psalm-singing.” One remedy for the unenthusiastic class is to challenge them to rise above themselves in order to meet the demands of the art. A teacher known to this writer tells them, “Your chant doesn’t have very much life today. We have to represent the solemn joy in the tune even if we’re not in the mood for it. You have a cause of joy in you; put it outside of you through the chant. If you’re having a bad day, then you might just have to act as though you were in a good mood.” Though a feigned joy may get better artistic results than no joy at all, and for some it will be a step towards authentic cheer, the best cure is to tap into the supernatural joy at its causes, especially the theological virtues and religion. The fifteenth-century Denis the Carthusian goes so far as to deny that we can counterfeit the kind of joy we are to express in the chant. If we are to sing it worthily, we have to contemplate. At least that is the ideal he represents to us in his treatment of the Gloria of the Mass: “This angelic canticle has to be sung with a great joy of the heart and a most sweet devotion, which is not possible, unless the intellect is sincerely fixed in the contemplation of God. For in the measure that the words are more divine, so much the more they require greater attention and purer elevation of the mind.” faith as the Catholics of Christendom, and with that faith and the voice that God gave to us, we can carry on the work of the restoration of the chant in earnest. Let us observe the precepts of a good chant-master and make sacred music of the same power and quality that they made of both their cathedrals and their chant, through acts of understanding, devotion, faith, and holy cheer! A Practical Consideration To know something of the mind of the medieval chant-master is a small part in the work of restoring all things in Christ. May we contribute something to this magnificent end, not only by knowing the thought, but by actively applying the precepts! The writings we have examined above describe ideals common to both chant and the great Gothic cathedrals, ideals that can and should be realized in our schools and our churches today. Few of us have the means to build a Gothic church. But we have the same 33 Faith and Morals A Lonely Voice for Peace by Pope Pius XII, the 1942 Christmas Message Introduction The Catholic Church had been offering condemnations of Nazi racism since the earliest days of the Nazi movement. Following the outbreak of war, Pius followed Vatican precedent and pursued a policy of “impartiality.” The 1942 Christmas address was 26 pages and over 5,000 words long and took more than 45 minutes to deliver. The majority of the speech spoke generally about human rights and civil society. The speech was “crafted to fit the circumstances as he saw them—that is to say, he addressed principles and omitted particulars.” A New York Times editorial called Pius XII a “lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent.” The head of the Gestapo, Heinrich Mueller, commented that the encyclical was 34 The Angelus September - October 2014 “directed exclusively against Germany.” So outspoken was it that the Royal Air Force and the French air force dropped 88,000 copies of it over Germany. Pope Pius XII Speaks Five points for ordering society… Anyone who considers in the light of reason and of faith the foundations and the aims of social life, which we have traced in broad outline, and contemplates them in their purity and moral sublimity, and in their benefits in every sphere of life, cannot but be convinced of the powerful contribution to order and pacification which efforts directed towards great ideals and resolved to face difficulties, could present, or better, could restore to a world which is internally unhinged, when once they had thrown down the intellectual and juridical barriers, created by prejudice, errors, indifferences, and by a long tradition of secularization of thought, feeling, action which succeeded in detaching and subtracting the earthly city from the light and force of the City of God. Today, as never before, the hour has come for reparation, for rousing the conscience of the world from the heavy torpor into which the drugs of false ideas, widely diffused, have sunk it. This is all the more so because in this hour of material and moral disintegration the appreciation of the emptiness and inconsistency of every purely human order is beginning to disillusion even those who, in days of apparent happiness, were not conscious of the need of contact with the eternal in themselves or in society, and did not look upon its absence as an essential defect in their constitutions. What was clear to the Christian, who in his deeply-founded faith was pained by the ignorance of others, is now presented to us in dazzling clearness by the din of appalling catastrophe which the present upheaval brings to man and which portrays all the terrifying lineaments of a general judgment even for the tepid, the indifferent, the frivolous. It is indeed, an old truth which comes out in ever new forms and thunders through the ages and through the nations from the mouth of the Prophet: “All that forsake thee shall be confounded; they who depart from thee, shall be written in the earth; because they have forsaken the Lord, the Vein of Living Waters.” The call of the moment is not lamentation but action; not lamentation over what has been, but reconstruction of what is to arise and must arise for the good of society. It is for the best and most distinguished members of the Christian family, filled with the enthusiasm of Crusaders, to unite in the spirit of truth, justice and love to the call; God wills it, ready to serve, to sacrifice themselves, like the Crusaders of old. If the issue was then the liberation of the land hallowed by the life of the Incarnate Word of God, the call today is, if We may so express Ourselves, to traverse the sea of errors of our day and to march on to free the holy land of the spirit, which is destined to sustain in its foundations the unchangeable norms and laws on which will rise a social construction of solid internal consistency. With this lofty purpose before Us, We turn from the crib of the Prince of Peace, confident that His grace is diffused in all hearts, to you, beloved children, who recognized and adore in Christ your Savior; We turn to all those who are united with Us at least by the bond of faith in God; We turn, finally to all those who would be free of doubt and error, and who desire light and guidance; and We exhort you with suppliant paternal insistence not only to realize fully the dreadful gravity of this hour, but also to meditate upon the vistas of good and supernatural benefit which it opens up, and to unite and collaborate towards the renewal of society in spirit and truth. The essential aim of this necessary and holy crusade is that the Star of Peace, the Star of Bethlehem, may shine out again over the whole mankind in all its brilliant splendor and reassuring consolation as a pledge and augury of a future better, more fruitful and happier. It is true that the road from night to full day will be long; but of decisive importance are the first steps on the path, the first five mile-stones of which bear chiseled on them the following maxims: -- Dignity of the Human Person. -- Defense of Social Unity. -- Dignity of Labor. -- The Rehabilitation of Juridical Order. -- Christian Conception of the State. Postwar Renovation of Society Beloved Children, may God grant that while you listen to Our voice your heart may be profoundly stirred and moved by the deeply felt seriousness, the loving solicitude, the unremitting insistence, with which We drive home these thoughts, which are meant as an appeal to the conscience of the world, and a rallying-cry to all those who are ready to ponder and weigh the grandeur of their mission and responsibility by the vastness of this universal disaster. A great part of mankind, and, let Us not shirk from saying it, not a few who call themselves Christians, have to some extent their share 35 Faith and Morals in the collective responsibility for the growth of error and for the harm and the lack of moral fiber in the society of today. What is this world war, with all its attendant circumstances, whether they be remote or proximate causes, its progress and material, legal and moral effects? What is it but the crumbling process, not expected, perhaps, by the thoughtless but seen and depreciated by those whose gaze penetrated into the realities of a social order which hid its mortal weakness and its unbridled lust for gain and power? That which in peace-time lay coiled up, broke loose at the outbreak of war in a sad succession of acts at variance with the human and Christian sense. International agreements to make war less inhuman by confining it to the combatants, to regulate the procedure of occupation and imprisonment of the conquered remained in various places a dead letter. And who can see the end of this progressive demoralization of the people, who can wish to watch helplessly this disastrous progress? Should they not rather, over the ruins of a social order which has given such tragic proof of its ineptitude as a factor for the good of the people, gather together the hearts of all those who are magnanimous and upright, in the solemn vow not to rest until in all peoples and all nations of the earth a vast legion shall be formed of those handfuls of men who, bent on bringing back society to its center of gravity, which is the law of God, aspire to the service of the human person and of his common life ennobled in God. Mankind owes that vow to the countless dead who lie buried on the field of battle: The sacrifice of their lives in the fulfillment of their duty is a holocaust offered for a new and better social order. Mankind owes that vow to the innumerable sorrowing host of mothers, widows and orphans who have seen the light, the solace and the support of their lives wrenched from them. Mankind owes that vow to those numberless exiles whom the hurricane of war has torn from their native land and scattered in the land of the stranger; who can make their own the lament of the Prophet: “Our inheritance is turned to aliens; our house to strangers.” Mankind owes that vow to the hundreds of thousands of persons who, 36 The Angelus September - October 2014 without any fault on their part, sometimes only because of their nationality or race, have been consigned to death or to a slow decline. Mankind owes that vow to the many thousands of noncombatants, women, children, sick and aged, from whom aerial warfare—whose horrors we have from the beginning frequently denounced— has without discrimination or through inadequate precautions, taken life, goods, health, home, charitable refuge, or house of prayer. Mankind owes that vow to the flood of tears and bitterness, to the accumulation of sorrow and suffering, emanating from the murderous ruin of the dreadful conflict and crying to Heaven to send down the Holy Spirit to liberate the world from the inundation of violence and terror. Restoring the Integrity of Catholic Social Teaching by Gabriel S. Sanchez, J.D. Catholic Social Teaching (CST), though rooted in centuries of reflection supplied by some of the Church’s greatest theologians, is often thought to have begun in 1891 with Pope Leo XIII’s groundbreaking encyclical Rerum Novarum. While there is a loud ring of truth to this, traditional Catholics should be well aware that the Church’s modern social magisterium began to emerge following the violent rise of liberalism in France in 1789 and the revolutionary upheavals which rocked Europe throughout the 1800s. With the early decades of the 20th century delivering further global unrest through two cataclysmic wars, a worldwide economic depression, and the rise of racialist fascism and atheistic communism, the holders of St. Peter’s Chair issued further encyclicals reminding the world that neither socialism nor unfettered capitalism were just economic options, and that all political authority comes from God. Today CST is the subject of numerous treatises, scholarly articles, and popular commentaries from Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Rerum Novarum, for example, has been subject to three anniversary letters by Popes Pius XI, Paul VI, and John Paul II respectively, all of which have developed the Church’s teaching on a just socio-economic order. Unfortunately, despite calls for the Church’s magisterium to be read holistically and in continuity with tradition, liberals of various stripes have sought to distort and limit CST by reading certain papal pronouncements selectively while marginalizing, or outright discarding, others. The result of this “hermeneutic of selectivity” is a regrettable myopia whereby, on the one hand, socio37 Faith and Morals political liberals within the Church believe that CST is primarily concerned with “social justice” (an amorphous concept) but not the social rights of Christ the King while, on the other hand, economic liberals such as those housed within the Catholic-backed Acton Institute or the radically libertarian Cato and Mises institutes hold that when it comes to the “free market” and the findings of “economic science,” the Church has no competence to speak. Both lines of thinking are irredeemably flawed, as are similar views that certain passages found within the documents produced at the Second Vatican Council somehow abolished the teachings contained in Blessed Pope Pius IX’s Quanta Cura and the Syllabus Errorum or Pius XI’s great encyclical on Christ the King, Quas Primas. Without wading too far into the fraught waters of how to reconcile (or not) Vatican II’s declaration on religious liberty with the pre-Conciliar magisterium, it must be recalled that, by way of a specific intervention from Paul VI, Dignitatis Humanae opens with the statement that “it leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and of societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.” Although that line has often failed to reinforce the Church’s longstanding condemnation of religious indifferentism, it remains a stumbling block for those who wish to maintain an easygoing compromise between the truth of the Catholic Faith and the rickety tenets of religious liberalism—tenets which have not protected the rights of the Church in modern Western society. Returning now to the flawed thinking with regard to social justice and economic liberalism referenced above, Catholics who remain confused about both would do well to look to St. Pius X’s oft-neglected 1903 motu proprio Fin Dalla Prima Nostra which sets forth directives for Catholic Action. Contra the claims of social-justice Catholics that the Church’s social magisterium ordains a roughly egalitarian society built on a disordered understanding of class conflict, Pius X, citing Leo XIII’s encyclical Quod Apostolici Muneris, reminds the faithful of the following: “Hence it follows that there are, according to 38 The Angelus September - October 2014 the ordinance of God, in human society princes and subjects, masters and proletariat, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, nobles and plebeians, all of whom, united in the bonds of love, are to help one another to attain their last end in heaven, and their material and moral welfare here on earth.” Further along in the motu proprio, Pius X recalls the doctrine set forth in Rerum Novarum with respect to workers and owners. Rather than accepting the iron law of economic liberalism whereby the market, unconstrained by regulatory oversight and legal rules rooted in natural justice, is expected to set wages and working conditions in line with abstract notions of “efficiency,” the saintly Pontiff writes: “The following are obligations of justice binding on capitalists: To pay just wages to their workingmen; not to injure their just savings by violence or fraud, or by overt or covert usuries; not to expose them to corrupting seductions and danger of scandal; not to alienate them from the spirit of family life and from love of economy; not to impose on them labor beyond their strength, or unsuitable for their age or sex.” “For the settlement of the social question much can be done by the capitalists and workers themselves, by means of institutions designed to provide timely aid for the needy and to bring together and unite mutually the two classes. Among these institutions are mutual aid societies, various kinds of private insurance societies, orphanages for the young, and, above all, associations among the different trades and professions.” Here again Pius X recognizes different classes within society. Instead of condoning disruptive, even violent, action being undertake to ameliorate this alleged evil, he calls for fresh intermediary institutions built on authentically Christian principles to establish harmony between the classes. That doesn’t mean only the rich and powerful benefit, however. As Pius X makes clear, workers are entitled to just wages to support themselves and their families without being exposed to fraud, violence, usurious lending, or any other corrupting action by employers. These important precepts receive further elaboration in Pius XI’s Quadragesimo Anno, a towering encyclical which, among other things, slays the myth that in the face of economics, the Pope should remain silent: “We lay down the principle long since clearly established by Leo XIII that it is Our right and Our duty to deal authoritatively with social and economic problems. It is not of course for the Church to lead men to transient and perishable happiness only, but to that which is eternal. Indeed ‘the Church believes that it would be wrong for her to interfere without just cause in such earthly concerns’; but she can never relinquish her God-given task of interposing her authority, not indeed in technical matters, for which she has neither the equipment nor the mission but in all those that have bearing on moral conduct. For the deposit of truth entrusted to Us by God, and Our weighty office of propagating, interpreting and urging in season and out of season the entire moral law, demand that both social and economic questions be brought within Our supreme jurisdiction, in so far as they refer to moral issues.” Sadly, Pius XI’s weighty admonition has not stopped ostensibly orthodox Catholics from claiming the right to dissent from CST when it does not align with their preferred hypercapitalistic ideology. Indeed, even more recent socio-economic encyclicals such as John Paul II’s Centesimus Annus and Benedict XVI’s Caritas et Veritate have been subjected to artful reinterpretation, if not outright scorn, because they continue to express the Church’s longstanding insistence that no legitimate wedge can be driven between economics and morality. None of this is to say that the post-Conciliar social magisterium is as clear and full-throated as it ought to be. For instance, while Pope Francis’s labyrinthine Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium contains stern rebukes against individualism, materialism, and consumerism, Fr. Franz Schmidberger—rector of the Society of St. Pius X’s seminary in Germany— is right to lament that the Holy Father did not also take the opportunity to remind readers of the importance of the Catholic state and Christian society for acting as bulwarks against those excesses. In fact, one of the primary shortcomings of contemporary CST is its refusal to link its socio-economic prescriptions with the Social Kingship of Christ. Is it any surprise that greed has replaced charity as the animating principle of Western economic life in a day and age when the Gospel has been banished from public life? And yet the post-Conciliar Church remains convinced that there is some sort of middle way which can be charted which will allow it to speak authoritatively on matters of faith and morals while doing so with rhetoric more fit for a United Nations resolution. Faithful Catholics concerned with educating themselves on the Church’s authentic social magisterium, undiluted by certain questionable lines of thought, would do well to consult some of the classic treatises on the subject. An ideal, albeit time-intensive, place to begin is Fr. Edward Cahill’s The Framework of a Christian State followed by Fr. Denis Fahey’s two-part magnum opus The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World and The Mystical Body of Christ and the Reorganization of Society. Moreover, traditional Catholic publishers are continuing to make available new and classic works moored in traditional CST. These may be dark times, but we are not without light. Maintaining or, rather, restoring the integrity of CST, free of the manipulative hermeneutics of ideologues and the worldly compromises that have become a hallmark of the present Church, is a daunting but necessary task. In a world gone mad with the logic of soulless production and acquisition, there is no time for justice in the marketplace. When the rights of man have displaced the rights of God, the duty of all men and nations to Christ is not merely an afterthought; it is no longer thought of at all. Though the liberalism—political, economic, and religious—which the great Popes of yesteryear warned the world against now reigns triumphant, that does not relieve Catholics of the duty to strive for right order. There will come a time for action, both small and great. For now, clarifying and promoting the principles of that order as found in the Church’s social magisterium is where we must begin. 39 Spirituality Montjoie! Saint Denis! by Fr. Dominique Bourmaud, SSPX “O Jerusalem… Far from your gates, I cry to Thee!” This was the agonizing cry of a warrior, Lord of the Frankish kingdom. Twice he had taken the pilgrim’s staff and the cross to climb the holy mountain. On that fateful summer of 1270, on a bed of ashes in Tunis, Louis IX was dying of a fatal epidemic which claimed many of his men, unable to fulfill his wish of reconquest of the Holy Sepulcher. Born to Be a Warrior King King Louis was born on the feast of St. Mark, April 25, 1214, the day of the Great Litanies where black penitents process through the streets of the City. “Nothing happens by chance,” Blanche of Castile used to explain to her royal son, and she 40 The Angelus September - October 2014 augured that this birthday coinciding with the black crossed presaged the trials of his life. In his veins on his father’s side ran the blood of the two most prestigious dynasties ever seen: the Capetians and Carolingians. Blanche was also grand-daughter of Alfonso VIII, the victorious warrior of the Navas de Tolosa against the Moors. All too soon, the child born to be king was to enter history. Three years only had his father Louis VIII held the scepter when he suddenly died, leaving Queen Blanche regent of the country for her oldest son, then twelve years old. Soon enough, this unusual state of affairs gave rise to the revolt of the barons, who wanted to profit by the vacuum to offer the crown to Albion in the person of Henry III Plantagenet, king of England. Hence, Blanche following her Council’s advice, had the child king swiftly crowned and proclaimed king at Rheims. Civil struggles ensued, but the queen, both spirited and prudent, dealt a fatal blow to her enemies and placed all as the king’s vassal. These were the first wars the teenage king was witnessing. He would be waging many more in his lifetime for God and country. At home, he would have to contend with the betrayal of powerful vassals, the duke of Brittany and that of Poitou, all too prone to offer support to the English. The child was taught from an early age his royal duties. Queen Blanche encouraged him thus: “Louis, it were better for you to perish than to commit willingly a mortal sin! It is no sin to become the stronger so as to better defend oneself. Violence alone is sin; fortitude is a virtue. But what does it profit to be the strongest if it is not to relieve the weak? When you believe you are set above men, remember that God is above you. Between a king and a beggar, there is only a line of distance; but between God and a king, there is the infinite.” Another Solomon Brother Guerin reminded Louis: “The attributes of the king are three: potentia, benignitas and sapientia. But these must coexist: goodness without justice ceases to be a virtue.” As a Christian king, Louis IX took it to heart to respect and have his subjects respect the ideals necessary for salvation: justice and peace. And so he made it his business to establish order in all things so as to stave off any source of conflict. His loyalty was legendary. Typical is the example of the lord of Trie, who sent the saint some letters, which stated that the King had granted the county of Danmartin to the heirs of the Countess of Boulogne, recently dead. But the seal of the letter was broken, so that there was nothing left of the King’s seal but half the legs of the figure and the stool. Louis asked his counsel’s advice and they all declared that he was in no wise bound to carry out the terms of the letter. Then he had his chamberlain bring him the duplicate letter at court. When he had the letter in his hand, he said to us: “Sirs, look at this seal which I used before I went overseas: it is plain to see, that the impress of the broken seal is exactly like the perfect seal, so that I could not venture in all conscience to withhold the county in question.” Famous was his way of delivering justice under the oak tree of Vincennes. He would cause a carpet to be spread, that his counsel might sit round him; and all the people who had business before him stood round about, and then he caused their suits to be dispatched by his judges and he would interject to offer some pertinent insight on the case at hand. Often he would directly ask the parties: “Why do you not accept what our officers offer you?” and they would say: “It is very little, Sir.” And he would talk to them as follows: “You ought really to take what people are ready to concede.” Thus, King Louis labored with all his might to bring them into the right and reasonable course. The Peacemaker and Diplomat His prestige was such that his arbitration was sought by small and great to solve their conflicts. Two of the greatest Western powers, Emperor Frederick II and the Pope were at war. St. Louis kept a strict neutrality in their dealings. Being the most powerful monarch of Christendom, he gave to each his due: a great and obedient respect to the Pope and a formal acceptance of 41 Spirituality the symbolic pre-eminence to the emperor. But to both, he forbade them from meddling in the temporal affairs of his royal domain. In 1240, as the Pope wished to dethrone the emperor and replace him with Louis’s brother, Robert of Artois, King Louis rejected the proposal. The next year, Italian prelates on their way to Rome were taken by Frederick’s fleet. The saint, thinking highly of the emperor’s good will, requested their liberation. The emperor answered haughtily: “Cesar is holding in anguish those who had come to put Cesar in anguish.” The French king responded quickly to this injunction: “The kingdom of France is not so weakened that it will be led by spurs.” Frederick, unwilling to lose his friendship, quickly released the prelates. In England, the barons rebelled against the king, which led to the Magna Charta of 1215, and then to the two Provisions of Oxford (1258), and of Westminster (1259). The English King was set free from the provisions by the Popes, but the barons rejected this pontifical decision. By 1263, both parties requested the arbitration of Louis IX and promised to follow his decision. Louis rendered the verdict “said of Amiens,” which ratified the pontifical bull and restored the fullness of sovereignty to Henry Plantagenet. The barons, who regarded him as lord over the king of England and indirectly their own sovereign, surrendered to his judgment. The Last Crusader Having returned sick from his Poitou campaign, King Louis was at death’s throes in 1244 when his mother brought to his bedchamber the relics from the Chapelle Royale. His rapid cure was perceived as a miracle. Having recovered the use of speech, Louis used it to make the vow of taking the cross. His entourage tried to dissuade him by saying that, when he made the vow, he was ill and not in fully compos mentis. Hearing this, the king decided to renew his vow to go on crusade now that he was well in body and mind! Leaving the queen mother in charge of the realm, Louis IX landed in Egypt with a large army of 25,000 men and 8,000 horses. There, they 42 The Angelus September - October 2014 launched into their battle cry: “Montjoie, Saint Denis!” That very same cry had been uttered 150 years earlier by the crusaders as they gazed first at the walls of Jerusalem. But why did the king choose Damietta of Egypt and not Caesarea of Palestine? Because Egypt was the gateway to the Holy Land, and Louis had the daring hope of striking at Cairo, the heart of the Egyptian Sultan, the Emir who reigned over the Middle East. What little gains the Christians had at first were soon offset by the enemies. The crusaders’ victory of Mansoura, dearly paid, was followed by famine and dysentery. The last chapter written was the disaster of Fariskur in 1250 on the Nile where the king and a great part of the army are made prisoners. The defeated king was recalling to mind the early lessons of Brother Guerin: “Sire, although a king, misfortune awaits you. Be valiant enough to deserve to become unfortunate with dignity.” The Sultan having been traitorously killed by his Mamelukes, his wife, the Sultana, spoke thus to the royal prisoner: “What? Why are you sad?” “I am. I have not conquered the thing I wanted most, the reason for which I left my sweet king­dom and my dear mother, that for which I exposed myself to all perils of sea and war.” “And what is, Lord king, this thing which you so desire?” “Your soul, Madam. As well as that of all your people!” “This enterprise was most adventurous and perilous.” “I am a Christian king. I cannot abandon the land of the Incarnation, the cradle which gave us the Light of the world. This is dictated by our Law, born in Jerusalem.” “And what is the Generous Koran for you, Lord king Nazarean?” “Madam, a Christian cannot acknowledge himself in the Alkoran. This Book does not come from God since it contradicts the foundations of the Christian Revelation and even the entire Biblical Revelation.” “And Mohammed—may God bless and greet him—what is he for you?” “A Christian cannot see in him a prophet. And his life is far from edifying…” “If the Koran does not come from God and if Mohammed is a false prophet, would not Islam only be some type of heresy for you Christians?” “Assuredly! It contains traces of Nestorianism and Arianism. It is a mixture of heresies simpli­ fied for the sake of Bedouin shepherds.” “And why do you think that you could not be a good Sultan?” “This is because of the Oumma, which defines the limits of the land of Islam. Where would my territory end? Presently the Oumma is Egypt, Arabia, Syria, Palestine, but tomorrow?” “Tomorrow, the entire world… since the Oumma is the best of communities wished by God.” “I will never agree that the Egyptian sultan impose on the King of France to subject his kingdom before Mohammed the prophet.” willing to convert and had readied his city for the siege. Saint Louis stormed the nearby city of Carthage awaiting the reinforcements of his brother Charles of Anjou. But again, the army suffered the epidemic of dysentery or typhus which claimed firstly the prince heir. Soon enough, the King was at the agony, and died August 25, 1270. His last words were “Good-bye, my France… Beautiful Sire, God, have mercy on this people… Let it never defect, I beg of Thee… I commend my spirit to Thy safe keep.” The Last Crusade Louis IX and his fellow army prisoners were soon released thanks to his wife, Margaret of Provence. The king exchanged the armor for the pilgrim’s cloth and spent close to four years visiting the holy places where the Franks still had many strongholds. His return home was prompted by the sad news of Queen Blanche’s death. His arrival in France was a glorious one, as all his vassals could guess the halo of sainthood in this noble figure. But Saint Louis always interpreted the failure of the seventh crusade as a divine punishment. By 1266, he made the secret vow of taking the cross again. The date was fixed for 1270. The political situation in the Mediterranean guided his decision. His brother Charles of Anjou was now king of Sicily, a strategic base of operations. Also, Louis entertained hopes of converting the Sultan of Tunis and wished to use that city as the land base for attacking the Egyptian Sultan. Alas, as the departure date approached, the great powers declined to attend. The Pope had died and the vacancy was indefinitely prolonged. The Aragonese king James was caught in a sea tempest and gave up the enterprise altogether. The crusaders, however diminished, finally set foot near Tunis. Yet the Sultan was anything but 43 Spirituality Reading St. John by Exegeta Those who are in love delight in their beloved, want to know him or her ever more fully and intimately, the better to be one with the beloved. Those who love God delight in Him and want to know Him ever more fully and intimately, the better to be one with Him. “My beloved to me, and I to him” (Cant. 2:16). “He that loveth Me, shall be loved of My Father: and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him” (Jn. 14:21). This manifestation of the Son, together with the Father and the Holy Ghost, will be complete, of course, only in the Beatific Vision where “we shall see Him as He is” (Jn. 3:2) “that God may be all in all” (I Cor. 15:28). It is for this that we were created: “This is eternal life: that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent” (Jn. 17:3). While this manifestation of God, and our 44 The Angelus September - October 2014 corresponding love and union, will be complete only after our death here below and birth there above, “nevertheless, He left not Himself without testimony, doing good from heaven...” (Acts 14:16); and, moreover, “at sundry times and in diverse manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets” (Heb. 1:1) before, last of all, speaking to us by His Son (ibid.). “No man hath seen God at any time: the only begotten Son Who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him” (Jn. 1:18). The disciple “whom Jesus loved” wants, in his turn, to make manifest to us also the One he had the great grace of knowing and loving, that we too might have part in this grace. “These are written, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God: and that believing, you may have life in His name” (Jn. 20:31). “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life: for the life was manifested; and we have seen and do bear witness, and declare unto you the life eternal which was with the Father and hath appeared to us: that which we have seen and have heard, we declare unto you, that you also may have fellowship with us, and our fellowship may be with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ” (I Jn. 1:1-3) in the unity of the Holy Ghost, for “There are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost. And these three are one” (I Jn. 5:7). Not only is it St. John (and the other Sacred Writers) who have wanted this for us, but it is the Holy Ghost, God Himself, who has moved and inspired them so to write. These scriptures are holy because they come from God, “contain” God, and incite towards God. It is God’s word: “When you had received of us the word of the hearing of God, you received it not as the word of men, but, as it is indeed, the word of God” (I Thess. 2:13). These words contain the life-giving power of God Himself: “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (Jn. 6:64). And it is God Himself who has wanted us to know Himself, that we might love Him and be His children. “No one knoweth the Son but the Father, neither doth anyone know the Father but the Son, and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal Him” (Matt. 11:27). “I have called you friends: because all things whatsoever I have heard of My Father, I have made known to you” (Jn. 15:15). The Sacred Scriptures being such, they are what we call a “sacramental”: something from the Church (it is hers to establish the canon of the Scriptures and give their authentic sense) which, with pious and reverent use, becomes a source of actual graces. How many 45 Spirituality times has not God used His word He left with us to speak to our hearts! Well known, for example, is the case of St. Augustine (and his son) who, when not yet baptized and in agony of spirit before the awful step, was inspired to regard a text at random from St. Paul, whose epistles he had at hand. “Not in rioting and drunkenness,” he read, “not in chambering and impurities, not in contention and envy: but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh in its concupiscences” (Rom. 13:13). Immediately darkness gave way to light, and turmoil to peace. “The finger of God is here” (Ex. 8:19). His son Alypius read the next verse (“Him that is weak in faith, take unto you”) and, applying it to himself, would follow his father. Before them, the great St. Anthony, on entering a church, had heard being read: “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” (Matt. 19:21). He took it to heart, and literally. This he did, and became the father of a whole army seeking perfection in the desert. God used the same word to move in like manner St. Francis of Assisi. St. Norbert was a very worldly cleric when he had an accident that left him, for an hour, as if dead. He came to, with these words ringing in his ears: “Let him decline from evil and do good; let him seek after peace and pursue it” (I Pet. 3:11). His conversion was instantaneous and complete. St. Therese of the Child Jesus found her way of Spiritual Childhood in the Scriptures; notably: “Whosoever is a little one, let him come to Me” (Prov. 9:4) and “You shall be carried at the breasts....As one whom the mother caresses so will I comfort you” (Is. 66:12 ff.). “Never were words so touching: never was such music to rejoice the heart!” was her reaction. And so on, and so on. Now, the Sower still goes forth sowing His seed, “and the seed is the word of God” (Lk. 8:11). What is required is that it fall into good ground; and a first disposition for their ground to be good is that all “receive...the love of the truth, that they might be saved” (II Thess. 2:10). This love of the truth will include a great veneration for God’s word, a reverent docility towards what­ever God may be teaching us, and a humble acknowledgement of our limited understanding of “the manifold wisdom of God” (Eph. 3:10); to read the Bible to 46 The Angelus September - October 2014 learn what God may be saying to us [“Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth” (I Kings 3:10)] and not to vaunt our learning, nor yet to find proof for our preconceived ideas. The Gospel, you see, may be likened to a wood-print or etching that leaves its picture in outline form, in black and white. There are those who would color the picture in: a Calvin would use too many dark colors and find his morose religion of reprobation; others, only red, and conclude “Liberation Theology”; many, much pink, and see a very rosy picture of universal salvation or a religion of common good will with no structures or rules; etc. All green will give you the Gospel according to the Greens; all the colors of the rainbow, that of New Age. Others, wanting to give greater relief to certain aspects will go outside the lines and can too end up distorting the whole (the Gospel according to this or that “Mystic”? More of that, perhaps, later). This love of the truth will incite us to do what we can to understand rightly the word of God. Firstly, of course, prayer [“Teach me goodness and discipline and knowledge” (Ps. 118:66)]; and then studying the Holy Scriptures (I Tim. 4:13-16; II Tim. 3:14-17). Let us, for our part, endeavor to “search the scriptures” (Jn. 5:39), at least in an initial way for a part thereof: the writings of St. John, called “The Theologian” by the Greek Fathers for his deep understanding of the mysteries of God. “God helps those who help themselves” is a true idea, corresponding to the more theological: “Grace does not suppress, but perfects, nature.” We shall try to see how St. John’s works are to be read, that the Lord may Himself come to our aid and do what we cannot. May we be like the disciples on the road to Emmaus discussing together the divine events that had taken place, in such wise that Jesus might come in our midst to enlighten our feeble understanding, making us exclaim: “Was not our heart burning within us whilst He spoke in the way, and opened to us the scriptures?” (Lk. 24:32). To call these few words a “Foreword” would seem to suggest there is more to follow: and that may well be the case, God (& the editor of the Angelus) willing, time (& inspiration) permitting— but surely irregularly. Book Review To Build the City of God By Brian McCall “I want to be free, I want to be me!” This cry for freedom became frontal and confrontational in the 1960’s with the pacifist movement and the sexual revolution. No Pope and no God! No laws and no authorities to which we will ever submit. These were the cries of the Revolution, a worldwide movement orchestrated by high powers which have instituted a regime of total liberation and personal independence. Is man an isolated, voluntaristic, autonomous individual, as modernity would have him? Or is he subject to natural, social, and transcendent orders? The revolt, successful ever since the French Revolution, has come full circle after two centuries. We are presently reaping the ripe fruit of this denial of order and nature and laws which used to be sacrosanct and the pillars of society: Altar and Throne; divine and human authority. In this compilation of various conferences touching on daily societal issues, especially economy and politics, Mr. McCall is not afraid of treading on touchy grounds. Besides the hot questions of marriage and family, and how to survive in a system largely grounded on usury, he deals a blow at Big Brother, the Made in China cage, and the poor politics of the Unaffordable Care Act. The modern world has erected a monstrous edifice on false principles, which, through its own intrinsic nihilism, is hollow to the core. Given time, it must collapse, and so with clarity and insight the author points the way for Catholics to live always under the reign of Christ and to bring His kingship to a world increasingly desperate for the only Way that can truly bind us in temporal solidarity and transcendent communion. The intent of the book is best described by Dr. John Rao: “In the face of cynicism and despair, the supreme importance of Truth for the happiness of individuals and the polis; and in a society that desperately requires correction and transformation in Christ, the need for men and women to be in the world but not of it.” Fr. Dominique Bourmaud 296 pp. – Softcover – STK# BD374 – $16.95 Aachen Cathedral, frequently referred to as the Imperial Cathedral (in German: Kaiserdom) of Germany. The church is the oldest cathedral in northern Europe and was known as the Royal Church of St. Mary at Aachen during the Middle Ages. For 595 years, from 936 to 1531, the Aachen chapel was the church of coronation for 30 German kings and 12 queens. The church is the episcopal seat of the Diocese of Aachen. Christian Culture Charlemagne and the Long Frankish Pilgrimage to the Just War by Dr. John Rao If Rome was not built in a day, neither were the Christian Middle Ages. One prime example of this truth is the time that was required for the Eldest Daughter of the Church—the Franks—to produce one of medieval man’s major achievements: the concept of the just war and warrior. The fact that the path from the original Germanic glorification of pure butchery to a sense of noble Christian military mission was both purposeful as well as problematic can be seen in the work of the “second founder” of the Roman Empire—that Frankish King from the Carolingian Family that we know as Charlemagne (742-814). For Charlemagne’s career as soldier-emperor proved simultaneously to be a solid portent of a more promising Christian future and an indication of the distance yet to travel to that exalted destination. 50 The Angelus September - October 2014 “Charles” had a head start towards becoming “the Great” in matters combining Christianity with military action due to a number of already well-rooted stimuli directing the Franks towards using their massive physical power purposely and properly. The primal stimulus in this regard was the tribe’s passionate, open commitment to the True Faith and the realization that that commitment had practical consequences. This was stated clearly in Charlemagne’s father Pippin’s Prologue to his revised version of the “Salic Law” (763): the basic “constitution” of the so-called “Salty” Franks: “The illustrious people of the Franks was established by God himself; courageous in war, steadfast in peace, serious of intention, noble of stature, brilliant white of complexion and of exceptional beauty; daring, swift and brash. It was converted to the Catholic Faith; while it was still barbarian, it was free of all heresy. It sought the key of knowledge under divine guidance, desiring justice in its behavior and cultivating piety. It was then that those who were the chiefs of this people long ago dictated the Salic law...” (Pierre Riché, The Carolingians, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993, p. 83). Thankfully, public Frankish dedication to Christianity benefited from a second stimulus of equal importance: the assistance of courageous teachers possessing a sound understanding of all that was needed for the education of their pupils and no illusions regarding their ignorance and recalcitrance. St. Boniface’s (c. 672/680-754) extensive correspondence—all of it available online—gives us a pretty sound indication of the tack such teachers felt they had to take. This “Apostle to the Germans” was absolutely certain that the Christian missions established by him required Frankish military protection for survival. Further still, he saw that the ability to mobilize such help made an immense impression upon the power-worshipping barbarians, aiding in their evangelization. (R. Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversions, U. of California, 1999, pp. 236, 242-243). I would venture to add that he recognized that the teachings of the intellect and the spirit are always “weak” in this, our valley of tears, and will, therefore, always need to demonstrate that it can call upon the aid of physical strength to give them practical backbone. Nevertheless, Boniface was aware that he was summoning up the physical strength of a warrior tribe that was to a large degree only nominally Christian. The Franks were tempted to make an exact equation between the message and victory of the Gospel with the extension of Frankish borders and the consequent satisfaction of the political and financial needs of their ruling elite. Hence the willingness of the latter to combine physical support for the Church with the confiscation or misdirection of ecclesiastical property for military purposes, the appointment of unworthy but politically influential men to key bishoprics, campaigns of forced baptism, and the imposition of tithes upon those forcibly converted before they even were taught what their new Faith was all about. The Apostle to the Germans was disgusted by the inversion of the hierarchy of values that his dependence upon military clout could seem to condone. As a sound Christian teacher, he therefore exploited every opportunity he could find to change the “structures of sin” of the Frankish Kingdom and the still pagan mentality of his frightening and often perverse guardians. He had to show “might” that it only had meaning in the service of “right”. A third and crucially important stimulus to purposeful direction of military action, long at work among the Franks before the accession of Charlemagne, was a commitment to the concept of life as a pilgrimage. The tribe inherited this vision from Christian Roman Gaul, which had produced some of the earliest pilgrims to the Holy Land to write extensively about their experiences. Their “pilgrim spirit” taught them that they were indeed on a journey through life, that that journey was by no means easy, that it had to be organized properly, that they, the Franks, had their own special role to play in its organization, and that their own salvation hinged upon whether they developed this role properly. All these themes were spelled out for them by other members of the Christian teaching “college”, with reference to a body of works with enormous influence throughout the Middle Ages ascribed to the man we call Pseudo Dionysius the Areopagite. Charles the Great did indeed inherit such stimuli. Still, he impressed them upon the new alliance of Christian, Roman, and Germanic elements forged in the lands of the old Empire with a particular intensity and strength of will that—as Pierre Riché insists—identify him as the true father of that socio-political entity we call Western Christendom. It was he who confirmed the goal of reunification of the whole of the old imperial ecumene through assiduous use of the power of the Frankish Army, which contemporaries referred to with the biblical name of “the Host”. It was he whose regal and imperial legislation showed that the power of the Host lay at the service of a comprehensive extension of Christian principles into every sphere of life—economic life included. It was he who most effectively made an attempt to 51 Christian Culture provide serious education for the clergy, and to raise the moral and cultural level of the active population as a whole, encouraging the merging of a mélange of superior intellectual influences from Byzantium, Egypt, Lombard Italy, Visigothic Spain, Ireland, and Britain into a new Christian whole while doing so. It was he who invited teachers like Alcuin (735-804), the great English Benedictine, to head his so-called Palace School at Aix-la-Chapelle, and give new and eloquent expression to the pilgrim spirit so important to understanding the Frankish sense of mission: “If your intentions are carried out, it may be that a new Athens will arise in France, and an Athens fairer than of old, for our Athens, ennobled by the teaching of Christ, will surpass the wisdom of the Academy. The old Athens had only the teachings of Plato to instruct it, yet even so it flourished by the seven liberal arts. But our Athens will be enriched by the sevenfold gift of the Holy Spirit, and will, therefore, surpass all the dignity of earthly wisdom.” (Epistle 170, cited in C. Dawson, Religion and the Rise of Western Culture, Image, 1991, p. 65). Yes, Charlemagne put all of the essential elements of international medieval Christendom firmly in place—and he did so, first and foremost, as a military man; as commander of the Frankish Host. “Might” was publicly identified as being at the service of Christian “Right”, but it was “might” that nevertheless held the final word in determining what this actually meant in practice. Sadly, the Frankish “old Adam” was still all too powerfully visible for this predominance of strength over teaching to be a good thing. For the Frankish pupil was, to a large degree, the same recalcitrant student that St. Boniface had had to confront. Hence, Charlemagne used his strength to do things that indicated that the just use of military might remained a concept very much in its formative stages. The most important example of this truth, bitterly lamented by Alcuin himself, was the policy of forcible baptism of the Saxons, and, once again, the impression that the payment of taxes to the powers-that-be and Christianity were one and the same thing. Alcuin, like Boniface, knew that “might” was there to be instructed, not to instruct. But Charlemagne, good-willed Christian though he was, could never 52 The Angelus September - October 2014 quite seem to grasp that fact. After all, how could someone publically recognized as a Christian Emperor violate his charge? Such a mentality showed that the task of putting “might” at the service of “right” was not complete, and, quite frankly, given fallen human nature, can never be “completed”. Our pilgrimage never ends, even when we call ourselves Christians. Not surprisingly, the failures of the Carolingian system and the first Father of Christendom would become all too clear as the chaos of the ninth and tenth centuries progressed. Nevertheless, the Eldest Daughter of Christendom survived the age of iron that followed this first attempt to build a Catholic society. It was to be in the Second Age of Christendom, the High Middle Ages, that the heirs of Charlemagne—saints like the Emperor Henry II and King Louis IX, along with the monks and popes who served as the Bonifaces and Alcuins of the new era—were to build a more solid concept of the just war and the just warrior. This concept, constructed around the idea of the Crusade and the crusader, was destined to become so Christian in character that a St. Francis of Assisi could happily adopt its themes and its literary expression, mobilizing them for his own spiritual combat. Such a purified vision of the just war and warrior was obliged to temper the spirit of “exceptionalism” that Pippin’s Prologue to the revision of the Salic Law and Charlemagne’s career reflect; a spirit that claims that once a people like the Franks proclaims itself to be Christian, it has by that fact alone escaped all need for further correction and transformation in Christ; an erroneous spirit that is, unfortunately, a temptation to all Christian men and women in every age, American Catholics in 2014 included. But our purified vision was also obliged to recognize that it was cleansing a spirit that was in and of itself a pearl of great price. That “pearl” emerged due to the incredibly courageous first step of Carolingian men of might and right to abandon their fallen human tendency to reject one another and admit their necessary interdependence. Interdependence alone gave raw power a lasting strength. It alone saved the intellect and the spirit from impotent paralysis. That interdependence, to quote Rick in Casablanca, “was the beginning of a beautiful friendship” that can only continue so long as the soldierly spirit thrives, Catholic teachers openly form it in obedience to the Truth, and the two work together: and this modernity abhors. It was enough for him that he called himself “the most Christian Emperor” to consider that his task was over. But the task is never over; the pilgrimage never ends, so long as we are alive. The failures of the Carolingian system and the first Father of Christendom would become all too clear as the ninth and tenth centuries progressed. Still, the Eldest Daughter of Christendom survived the age of iron that followed this first attempt to build a Catholic society. It was to be in the second Age of Christendom, the High Middle Ages, that the heirs of Charlemagne—the Saints Henry II and Louis IX, and others like them—were to truly work towards a more solid concept of the just war and the just warrior. That more solid concept would have to temper the spirit of “exceptionalism” that even Pippin’s Prologue to the revision of the Salic Law reflects; the spirit that thinks that once a people like the Franks has proclaimed itself to be Christian, it escapes all danger of error and need for further correction and further transformation in Christ. The courage of these people, their acceptance of opportunities and labors against appalling odds is what counts. What that more solid concept did not have to change was the basic courage of the actions of the Franks in general and Charlemagne in particular. This was a courage that enabled the man of strength to recognize rather than reject contemptuously the serious wisdom and spiritual vigor that alone can root his work in a great mission and give it staying power; a courage that also impacts upon the man of wisdom and spirit, giving him the strength to escape the paralysis that often comes with nuanced learning and feeling and commit himself physically to do what needs to be done to give his convictions serious clout. The Octagon in the center of the Cathedral was erected between 796 and 805. The span and height of Charlemagne’s Palatine Chapel was unsurpassed north of the Alps for over two hundred years. The Palatine Chapel consisted of a high, octagonal room with a two-story circuit below. The inner octagon is made up of strong pillars. Around this inner octagon is a sixteen-sided circuit of low groin vaults, supporting a high gallery above. This upper story was known as the Hochmünster (high church). The high altar and Imperial throne are located on the upper circuit of the Palatine Chapel in an octagonal side room, covered by a barrel vault lying on an angle. 53 186 pp. – Softcover – STK# 8534 – $13.95 2011 Conference Reflections on the Kingship of Christ “The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob forever.” Throughout the centuries of faith, one ideal kept various nations and peoples united: the Kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ over individuals and nations. Rejected by the Protestant revolutionaries, attacked by the architects of the Enlightenment, and ignored and derided in our own age, ignorance of the doctrine of Christ’s Kingship lies at the heart of the present crisis. This little book provides the reader with the key texts to understand, love, and defend this teaching. Along with biographical information about the speakers at the 2011 Angelus Press Conference, this book presents the relevant encyclicals from Popes Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII in their entirety, plus articles from the late Cardinal Pie, Fr. Juan Carlos Iscara, FSSPX, and Dr. John Rao. A must-have for those Catholics committed to restoring all things in Christ. Visit www.angeluspress.org — 1-800-966-7337 Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music. Christian Culture Sport and War Interview with Fr. Michael McMahon, SSPX The Angelus: Fr. McMahon, would you please explain for us the reason for the importance given to sports and games at La Salette. Fr. McMahon: Really, the importance or emphasis on sports at La Salette Academy is the importance or emphasis placed there by the great philosophers and theologians, Catholic educators and the Magisterium of the Church. Pope Pius XII wrote in 1945: “Sport, properly directed, develops character, makes a man courageous, a generous loser, and a gracious victor; it refines the senses, gives intellectual penetration and steels the will to endurance.” The proper subject of formation is the whole man as created by God and perfected in Our Lord Jesus Christ. The formation must be ordered and balanced, taking into account the supernatural life of Faith and Grace as well as the human nature it is meant to perfect. Man, as we know, is composed of body and soul, therefore in the process of proper formation, both the body and the soul must be taken into account. While there is a hierarchy and the soul is certainly more important, the body remains an essential component in the formational equation. As the great St. Francis of Assisi said, “Brother Ass must also be brought into subjection.” The Angelus: Are you saying that, just as the soul needs its spiritual nourishment, “Brother Ass” needs sport? Fr. McMahon: Well! At La Salette we seek to form our boys on the supernatural, rational, and the physical levels. Physical education cannot be neglected, and for young men in their teenage years should be rigorous and demanding. Besides strenuous exercises of running, jumping, 55 Christian Culture lifting, pulling and pushing, there is also an important place for competitive sports both on the intramural and interscholastic levels. Plato says in his Republic, that every child should have athletic experience which he called “gymnastics.” This renowned ancient philosopher felt that a man was incapable of reasoning correctly or engaging in the higher functions of the soul unless he had first toughened his spirit by athletic participation. Again, Pius XII: “Sport rightly understood is an occupation of the whole man, and while perfecting the body as an instrument of the mind, it also makes the mind itself a more refined instrument for the search and communication of truth. It helps man to achieve that end to which all others must be subservient, the service and praise of its Creator.” The Angelus: Can a boy grow up reasonably well without playing sports? How essential is it for his physical development? Fr. McMahon: The important point to remember is the proper formation of the young man and, in this context, with respect to the physical level. In theory this can happen without sport, and in past centuries this end was fulfilled in different ways. In the vast majority of cases, in today’s world, often the best means at hand to attain that necessary end is in the context of a serious physical education program aided by competitive sports. With most families living in urban or suburban communities on less than an acre of land, the most challenging chore for a boy on a given day is likely to be making his bed, vacuuming a floor or doing the dishes with his sisters. Some venue for properly forming the body and subjecting it to the rational soul must be found. The Angelus: Of course, traditionally only boys grew up to be warriors, and games for girls were of a different nature... Fr. McMahon: The difference in the natures of men and women reasonably demands a difference in their formation. The roles of the sexes as intended by Almighty God necessitate this. As it says in Genesis: “Male and female He created them.” By common experience and observation… boys play war, girls play house. In 56 The Angelus September - October 2014 his great encyclical on education, Pope Pius XI wrote: “In keeping with the wonderful designs of the Creator, men and women are destined to complement each other in the family and in the society, precisely because of their differences, which therefore ought to be maintained and encouraged during their years of formation, with the necessary distinction and corresponding separation according to age and circumstances.” The Angelus: I have read somewhere that children take play seriously and this prepares them for maturity, whereas adults who take games seriously turn into teenagers... Fr. McMahon: This sounds like it could have been written by the prolific G. K. Chesterton. The professional sports climate of today engenders grown men wasting hours of precious time watching other grown men play children’s games, while often neglecting important spiritual and familial duties. In most cases we no longer have sport, but a circus or a soap opera which creates a culture and ambiance inimical to right reason and sane living. There are few things which make the blood curdle more than a grown man wearing a professional sports jersey with the name of another grown man across his back: Vicariously living in a fantasy world or playing in a fantasy league with his heroes of the gridiron or diamond (the only thing worse is when a man allows his wife or girlfriend to wear the name of another grown man across her back!!). The Angelus: Why team sports? Why rugby and basketball? I am told that rugby is the game closest to battle-line warfare... Fr. McMahon: Different sports teach different virtues, but the best in a school setting seem to be the team sports. Sports such as rugby or basketball lend themselves readily to the submission of individual talents and desires to cooperation and a real commitment to the common good, fostering and facilitating the goals of the team. Unity among students results when sacrificing together for a tangible goal against an external opponent. Properly directed this can foster a true esprit de corps. An experienced educator will use and guide this to the higher levels for more important intellectual and spiritual goals. Even among the dysfunctional it remains a last bastion where sacrifices are made for something bigger than oneself. Discipline, self-control, submission to objective rules, poise under pressure, perseverance, fortitude, are just some in the long list of virtues which sports can help foster and teach; natural virtues, which can be eventually placed at the service of the supernatural. The Angelus: The old Integrity magazine wrote about some “viruses” affecting adults that are making inroads into teenage sports. The first is too much of the competitive spirit to the point of crushing the opponent. The other is “grandstanding”—showing off due to the spectator complex, which seems to destroy the purity of intention and total giving proper to teens. Fr. McMahon: While physical education and competitive sports aim directly at the bodily formation of a young man, we can never lose sight of the fact that since he is a man both his intellect and will are necessarily engaged. As Pius XII said: “Sport rightly understood is an occupation of the whole man.” Ultimately it is the higher formation which is directed to man’s final end: honoring and serving Almighty God and thus attaining eternal salvation. This is of paramount importance. Virtue must be taught even on the playing field and especially on the playing field. There is no vacation from virtue, it cannot be checked at the goal line. The “viruses” or vices mentioned in the question of crushing an opponent or vainly grandstanding certainly can destroy the process of proper formation. However, like a teacher in the classroom, the coach on the court or in the field must himself be a man trained in virtue having before himself always the ultimate ends of Christian formation. The Angelus: War is a matter of life and death, whereas games are not. Explain why it is important for the teenager to feel the pressure to win the ‘battle’ without losing his life... Fr. McMahon: There is no way to adequately equate sports to warfare. As is often stated, “War is hell.” Not having the personal experience of battle I hesitate to make such a comparison. Sports and proper physical education can be remote preparations for such: for all branches of the military service require “boot camp” as a more proximate preparation for combat. Boot camp includes many of the physical and even the team-building exercises which can be found and utilized at a lower level in a proper P.E. or sports program. Our schools are not preparing boys for war in the military sense, but certainly in the ecclesia militans as a soldier of Christ. In other words we are preparing them for life, a Christian life in this valley of tears in constant combat with the world, the flesh and the devil. The Angelus: Any last thoughts on the matter? Fr. McMahon: I would like to finish with a recent event where Divine Providence used our sports program for possibly the salvation of a soul. In 2007, our rugby team made a big splash by qualifying for the national tournament in Salt Lake City. After finishing 12th in the nation, the national Rugby Magazine wrote an excellent piece on the 53-student David that tangled evenly with a multitude of Goliaths. In Chicago, a man read that article and was not only intrigued but “prompted” to contact me in order to arrange a brief meeting since he soon planned on passing by the Academy. A scheduled half-hour tour and talk turned into a three-hour serious conversation, and a relationship was begun which may now have eternal ramifications. After 56 years away from the Sacraments and the practice of his Faith, this man attended our summer alumni retreat and made his confession, received Our Blessed Lord in the Holy Eucharistic and even Last Rights. The Hound of Heaven used the accomplishments of a tiny school on the rugby field in 2007, patiently waiting for seven years of prayers and penance to get him into the state of grace and onto the short path of salvation as he has terminal cancer and but months to live! Truly our ways are not God’s ways. Fr. Michael McMahon is Headmaster of Notre Dame de La Salette Boys Academy, Olivet, Illinois. 57 Trust in Divine Grace by Michael J. Rayes The small mob moved closer to the bishop. Led by the blacksmith and the town administrator, the crowd hustled into the bishop’s office, blocking the entrance. They were offended on this hot day in Italy in 1867. The town of Salzano is important and deserves a pastor with some sophistication. Someone with experience! Yet their bishop assigned a relative nobody to them: a priest barely 32 years old and who previously was merely an associate pastor. The people explained their indignation, ignoring the young priest standing next to the bishop. In response, the bishop simply pointed to the priest and declared that he is their new pastor. Father Giuseppe Sarto stood with his head lowered, wearing a worn cassock and a humble expression. The people left quietly, not knowing yet that Fr. Sarto would become a great blessing to their community. He is today known to the world as St. Pius X. This past summer I had the singular privilege of speaking with two young priests ordained for the SSPX. They are both the same age as my oldest son, which is simultaneously edifying and mortifying because I became aware of my own age. I remembered the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas that grace perfects nature. This teaching requires us to trust that God will use His grace. Sometimes it requires a lot of trust. Nature, after all, can only do so much. If we only relied on nature, the Church would probably fall apart within a generation and our marriages most likely would fail. How can we rely more on grace than nature when seeking the advice of a priest, regardless of his age? The short answer is that 59 Christian Culture we can deliberately develop a habit of looking beyond nature and trusting more in God’s grace. We will explore this first in the priesthood, and then as it pertains to marriage and family life. Nature Alone Is Insufficient God does not want us to use our mere human eyes to regard life on earth (cf. Luke 18:41-42). When sight was restored to a blind man who requested Domine, ut videam, the Lord declared that it was the man’s faith which made him whole again. Trust is a daughter of faith. Without trust in divine grace, it would seem that our natural reason, coupled with the passions, could reach some bad conclusions about the roles of priests and the laity. Such is fallen nature. God wants you to trust in His grace for two reasons which immediately come to mind: first, for His glory to shine through; second, to understand that you truly are His child. When we look back on events in the Church and in our own family, it becomes obvious that God’s hand is at work. Mere human effort would have at least disturbed the course of events, but probably completely destroyed the entire institutions of Church and family. God’s Instruments There is a certain peace that comes with the docility of letting go and trusting that God will work things out. Lay participation in the Traditional Latin Mass is a wonderful example of this. The lay faithful participate with the “internal worship of the heart” (Pius XII, Mediator Dei, §93). The priest and his altar servers are busy at Mass; the faithful are not. God’s grace works through the person of the priest and the servers as they perform their duties. When the laity trust in God and offer their love with the sacrifice of Mass, the fruit of this is serious and focused participation. The participation is internal and shows itself when the faithful follow the parts of the liturgy. With this internal worship, the age, personality, or looks of the priest no longer matter. With the eyes of faith, 60 The Angelus September - October 2014 the person of the priest is less important than the fact that he works alter Christus, as “another Christ.” Parents especially should remember this point when their children mention particular traits of a priest who said Mass. Mom and Dad, consider that complaint a teaching moment! With a trustful, docile heart, the laity may rest in the knowledge that God is using priests to perform His work. Like any man, a priest has his own character traits and natural wisdom born of experience and academic study. These worldly attributes alone make a traditional priest an asset to any parish, no matter his age. This again is an opportunity to teach children. One of the recently ordained priests whom I interviewed said that his parents frequently invited priests to their house for dinner. This helped the budding seminarian see the reality of priesthood in a concrete way. Divine Grace in Your Marriage The same peace will come when married couples put their trust in God. As God works through the priest to effect a propitiatory Mass, so will God work through your spouse to meet duties of state. This is easy to understand when your spouse fulfills your expectations, whether you have communicated them or not. Yet, does God really want a mere creature to be all things to another? As Bishop Fulton Sheen said in an address given April 7, 1939, “The tragedy of our modern life is that so many put their pleasures in desires rather than in discovery. Having lost the one purpose of human living, namely God, they seek substitutes in the petty things of earth.” Real Catholics marry each other, with all their strengths and weaknesses, but are used by God to spread His love and show His glory. This typically happens in spite of the people involved, not because of it. I know this is certainly the case in my own life. What does God want from your marriage? He wants you to do your duty. It is remarkably simple. There may be challenges, but the duties of marriage and family life are simple because God is simple. Do your duty and God will supply the grace. As St. Claude de la Colombière wrote in the 17th century, “One day of adversity can be of more profit to us for our eternal salvation than years of untroubled living, whatever good use we make of the time.” The Roots of a Lack of Trust A lack of trust could be a sign of the capital sin of covetousness. Trust is a place of surrender, of giving up our expectations and accepting with gratitude what we will eventually be given. It certainly could be painful, but it is necessary for spiritual growth. Bishop Sheen, in the same talk cited above, discussed one of the reasons our Lord came to this earth: “His teaching from the beginning was not only a warning against covetousness, but a plea for a greater trust in Providence.” Nowhere in sacred Scripture is it written that “God helps those who help themselves.” This is rather antithetical to the Gospel message of trust in a loving, benevolent God. The closest approximation to doing things oneself, rather than waiting for others, is St. James’s exhortation to be “doers of the Word and not hearers only” (Jas. 1:22). Even then, the context (verses 23-27) is to get out of one’s own self and to think of others first, for the sake of God. Along with trust in God is trust in your spouse. This is an aspect of the sacramentality of marriage. Married life involves proper roles so the spouses may help each other get to heaven. The complementary feminine and masculine roles will be hindered if the spouses do not trust that the roles will be fulfilled. When I begin to feel that my family is not doing things my way, I pause and consider the bigger picture. Clearly, their formation is strong. God doesn’t really need us to perform His work; He chooses to use our feeble efforts to make things happen. The glory is His. Having trust in divine grace, and trust in your spouse, requires acceptance of who they really are. It is easy to trust a powerful God who grants us what we ask, just the way we want it. It is much harder to follow Him to Calvary. At the beginning of this article I mentioned a humble priest from Italy who became a saintly pope. His priesthood did not remain the same, but was changed over the years by God’s grace. Your life will not always be as it is now; even marriage is dynamic and changes over the years. The important thing is to build on a foundation of trust that God will give you the grace of state to perform your duties. Complete trust in divine providence, and trust in your spouse, engenders a quiet confidence that things are in proper order and God is ultimately in control. The peace of soul from such confidence will certainly be noticed by your family, who will thus thrive in a happy, confident, and peaceful Catholic household. Michael J. Rayes holds master’s degrees in professional counseling and business administration, and a B.A. in education. He and his wife are lifelong Catholics with seven children. Rayes is the author of 28 Days to Better Behavior and Bank Robbery!, 61 Sounding Board of a Pulpit Above most pulpits hangs the sounding board. This ensures that the voice of the pastor is not lost in the space. In 1741 the chapter and the sculptor Laurent Delvaux (16961778) conclude a contract to create a new pulpit, which would rank among the best rococo works of the country. The composition is a perfect harmony between the dark oak and white marble figuration, governed by the monumentality of the wide nave. The main theme is the allegorical representation of the truth that is revealed by Time. As was usual after the Middle Ages, Time was represented by an elder whose wings symbolize speed. A young woman with book and palm and whose left foot is resting on a globe, symbolizes Truth. The open book refers to the Truth, the palm signifies power and victory, and the globe symbolizes the worldly things that are surpassed by the Truth. Sounding board and pulpit in the Cathedral, St. Bavon, Gand, Belgium Questions and Answers by SSPX priests Is the “Catholic” marriage of an insincere convert from paganism valid? There are two kinds of insincerity possible in a convert who receives adult baptism to become a Catholic. It is the responsibility of the minister of the sacrament to exclude both, but it is certainly possible for a person to receive baptism insincerely in order to marry a Catholic. The first kind of insincerity exists when a 64 The Angelus September - October 2014 person who is baptized has no real contrition for sin nor firm purpose of amendment nor the desire to live a Catholic life. He is insincere. However, he does have the intention of being baptized. The sacrament will not be fruitful, but it is valid, and confers the sacramental character, so that the person thus insincerely baptized is Catholic, even if his reception of baptism is sacrilegious and the baptized person a bad Catholic. Consequently marriage vows pronounced by such a person when marrying a Catholic in the Church constitute a sacramental marriage which is valid and cannot be annulled for lack of sincerity. There is a second kind of insincerity. This is the case when a person goes through the ceremony of baptism but without faith and without any intention at all of being baptized. Not only is he not sorry for his sins, but he does not want to receive the sacrament. Then the baptism is invalid. The person remains unbaptized and still a pagan. Consequently, any subsequent marriage would be invalid due to the impediment of disparity of cult, for the dispensation from this impediment would not have been requested since the person was thought to have been baptized. Such gross hypocrisy is an unlikely case. The problem here would be proving that the person excluded the intention of being baptized. Witnesses from the actual time of the baptism would have to be found and their testimony would have to be very precise. Is the Confession of a Novus Ordo Catholic in a traditional church valid? This is a question of supplied jurisdiction, namely does the Church supply jurisdiction to a person who is not convinced of the doctrinal reasons for the Society’s combat against the errors of Vatican II and the New Mass. There are many reasons for jurisdiction to be supplied, which are contained in the Code of Canon Law. One of the reasons is simply that a person requests a certain priest to hear his confession. That suffices. Another reason is called common error. It happens when a person goes into a confessional thinking that the priest has jurisdiction, as would a person who is not traditional when he comes into a traditional church. Common error even exists when a penitent knows himself that the priest does not have jurisdiction, but the priest is hearing confessions in a Catholic Church. It is not based upon the penitent’s personal error, but upon the care of the Church for all its penitents. (Cf. Fr. Anglés, Supplied Jurisdiction of Traditional Priests, Angelus Press). Traditional convictions are consequently not necessary for jurisdiction to be supplied, for the Church supplies in many situations, in order to ensure the validity of the sacrament. Are marriages in the extraordinary form valid even if one of the parties is not a traditional Catholic? The ordinary, canonical form of marriage exists when the parish priest performs a marriage in the parish church of the bride. Traditional priests, not having any canonical appointment as parish priests, cannot perform marriages in this ordinary form. They have recourse to the extraordinary form of marriage, which is foreseen in Canon 1098 of the 1917 Code and Canon 1117 of the 1983 Code. The use of the extraordinary form requires that there be a difficulty in going to the parish priest who has jurisdiction, and that that difficulty last for more than one month. Such a difficulty is the use of the New Mass for the marriage ceremony, or a modernist sermon, or the very defective marriage preparation classes that are usually given, or the compromise of having a post-conciliar priest celebrate it according to the norms of the motu proprio of Benedict XVI. It suffices that one of the couple has such a difficulty, which is why traditional priests have the right to perform mixed marriages, in which one party is not Catholic. The same applies when one party is Novus Ordo. However, just as traditional priests are very reluctant to perform mixed marriages, so also are they to perform a marriage between a 65 Questions and Answers Novus Ordo and a traditional Catholic. It is true that there is no canonical impediment, as in a regular mixed marriage. However, it is effectively like a mixed marriage, and is likely to have many problems. If the modern Catholic party refuses to become traditional, and to understand the overwhelming reasons in favor of our combat for Tradition, there is going to be a grave danger to the Faith of the traditional Catholic party and to that of the children. There is a good chance that the modern Catholic party will not assist at Mass with his family, nor pray together with them, nor teach them the true, unchanging catechism. The priest will have great difficulty in ruling out the danger of perversion of the Faith, which he must do, or such a marriage is against the divine law itself. The second reason is that the Novus Ordo party could later on dispute the validity of the marriage and obtain a false annulment for lack of canonical form. It is to avoid situations like these that traditional priests make both parties sign a form that they acknowledge that the marriage is valid according to the extraordinary form. However these forms are not necessary for the validity of the marriage. Can a penitent alternate between a priest who has jurisdiction and another who does not? The fact that a person occasionally goes to a priest who has jurisdiction for Confession does not mean that he does not have the right to use the supplied jurisdiction of traditional priests. There can be many reasons why he does so occasionally. A traditional Catholic can confess to a priest with jurisdiction for reasons of human respect, convenience or spiritual direction, or when he finds a priest with jurisdiction who is orthodox. Likewise a modern Catholic can for 66 The Angelus September - October 2014 the same reasons confess to a priest without jurisdiction. It is not necessary to know about the crisis in the Church to receive a valid absolution from a priest in virtue of supplied jurisdiction. It is the Church’s precaution, in fact, to ensure that the sacramental absolution is always validly given. Does a priest commit sacrilege if he rushes through the celebration of Mass? One must be careful about making accusations against priests of sacrilege because they celebrate Mass too rapidly or without due care in their pronunciation of the words. There can be many reasons why they give the impression of haste. Some priests are simply very nervous and scrupulous, and have difficulty without any fault of their own. They are trying hard to complete the Mass within the required 30 minutes. Others can have difficulties with the Latin or not pay so much attention to details, but it certainly does not mean that they do not have a strong faith or that they do not pay attention or that they recite the prayers of the consecration incorrectly. Frequently, those priests who pray the Mass rapidly are very careful about their pronunciation. Sometimes a priest will pray the Mass rapidly since he feels that it helps prevent him from having distractions. It has also to be remembered that there are varying degrees of sacrilege, and that even if a priest does celebrate rapidly or without very good pronunciation, it does not mean that it is serious neglect. A general rule given by the moral theologians is that the duration of a low Mass without sermon should not be less than twenty minutes. In such questions, we should never forget that the real priest offering every Mass is Christ Himself, and it is upon His offering that the infinite value of the Mass depends. The ordained priest is but an instrument, with his human faults and weaknesses. Consequently, although he will always try to give the best possible example to the faithful, he must be regarded with patience and mercy, and although we of course like to hear priests celebrate Mass in great simplicity, without hurrying, pronouncing the Latin clearly and distinctly, it is also important for us not to presume to judge the faith and intentions of the priest. before the remission of the sin. However, it is in fact very rare that there is such a censure. Consequently, except in those very rare cases, the omission of this phrase does not affect the validity of the Confession nor is it culpable. For example, it is not necessary for the Confession of children under 14 years of age, since they cannot incur a censure. Consequently, a penitent should not be concerned if the confessor completes the absolution of his sins before he himself has completed the recitation of the act of contrition. Is it right for a priest to complete the words of absolution before the penitent has recited his act of contrition? There are several parts of the formula of absolution that are not necessary for validity and that the priest can omit without sin for the sake of the faithful, for example when time is limited or there is a long line. This includes the Misereatur, the Indulgentiam and the Dominus Jesus Christus. In fact, all that is required for a valid absolution is the sacramental form itself: Deinde ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. This clearly does not take nearly as long to say as the act of contrition properly said. This being said, it is certainly recommended for the priest to recite the Misereatur and the Indulgentiam, just as it is recommended for the penitent to recite the Confiteor in Latin or the vernacular when he goes to Confession (but usually does not). The formula Dominus Jesus Christus that normally follows the Indulgentiam is an additional precaution, in case the penitent may have incurred a canonical censure without being aware of it or having forgotten to confess it. This precaution, required by the traditional rubrics, ensures the absolution of the censure 67 264 pp. – Softcover – STK# 5240 – $15.95 They Have Uncrowned Him If we wish to see Christ reign, we must first understand how they have uncrowned Him. This work is the fruit of a lifetime of service and study for Christ the King. Beginning by tracing the origins and nature of liberalism, it examines how that liberalism infected the Church in the 19th and 20th centuries. Moving from there, the Archbishop shows how that same liberalism, so long condemned, triumphed in a “revolution in tiara and cope.” Order yours today at www.angeluspress.org or call 1-800-966-7337 Church and World Patriarchatus Latinus Jerusalem Jaffa Gate P.O. Box 14152 Jerusalem 9114101 August 21, 2014 Civitas 17 rue des Chasseurs 95100 Argenteuil France To the Directors of Civitas: From Jerusalem, in my name and in the name of all the Christians of the Holy Land and the Middle East, I heartily thank you and encourage you for your undertaking and for the demonstration of support you have organized for this coming 21 September on behalf of the persecuted Christians in the East. Our suffering is great; the tragedy that our brothers in Gaza are experiencing is unspeakable. In addition to the bombardments, the situation as regards public sanitation has now become dramatic due to the lack of water. In this war-torn Middle East, a prey to fanaticism and violence, the innocent are the primary victims: children, Christians, and minorities. In Jordan, we have recently received about a thousand Christians driven out of Iraq. They have lost everything; some of them, their dearest possessions—wife, husband, children, relatives, in circumstances of the utmost barbarity. But in the midst of their profound distress, the flame of their faith—the faith for which they have accepted to lose everything—has not wavered. This flame is a sign for the whole world. Together let us unite ourselves with the call of Pope Francis to pray, to pray unceasingly. Our prayer is never in vain. It is our duty to mobilize as you are doing and to unite our voices so that they can be heard and so that world leaders recognize the urgency of the situation and take action to save the Christians of the Middle East. More than ever, we are in need of your support and your prayers. Awaiting the joy of welcoming you to Jerusalem should you come to the Holy Land, be assured of my blessing and my heartfelt communion. Fouad Twal Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem 69 Church and World SSPX Fathers Laroche and Chauvin in Lebanon July 2014 — During a time when, from Gaza to Mosul, the Christians of the East suffer persecution and flee from their own countries, the Society has been carrying on its apostolate in the Near East. Every year for the last 25 years, Fr. Patrice Laroche has been traveling to Lebanon to visit our faithful throughout the country. For the last two years, Fr. Gregory Chauvin has been sent by the French district to organize camps for Lebanese children. The first camp was held at Mayfouk in 2012, with 16 Lebanese and 12 Iraqi children. That summer, Fr. Laroche was in the Land of Cedars from July 1-9, where he gave a retreat for youth and visited families. This year, from July 13-17, Fr. Gregory Chauvin, accompanied by his sister Anne-Laure, was in Akkad, a region in northern Lebanon, to conduct activities for the children in the camps of Syrian refugees. (It needs to be realized that since the beginning of the war in Syria, some two million Syrians have taken refuge in Lebanon, which itself only has four million inhabitants.) One of our faithful, a French woman married to a Lebanese, had recruited a group of kind souls, of both Lebanon and France, to relieve the misery of the camps and to bring a little joy into the lives 70 The Angelus July - August 2014 of the Syrian children. Some French truck drivers accompanied by a Dominican friar of Chéméré-leRoi were among the team of volunteers. The presence of two priests gave our action an explicitly Catholic note in the eyes of the refugees, most of whom are Muslims. Our apostolate was more in depth among the Lebanese directors, and we had serious discussions about Tradition, the Council, the liturgy, and the crisis in the Church with some of them. We touched the lives of children in three camps by our activities. In the Abu-Ali camp, inhabited by Bedouins, the children were allowed to run wild, and they were very difficult because of being left to their own devices (some of the planned activities had to be called off because we had been robbed of necessary supplies...). The camp at Mafraq-Homs was for families from Aleppo; the children were better behaved and took advantage of everything we brought them. The children could participate in crafts, pottery drawing, puppets, origami, singing, dance, juggling, and so on. Lastly, we visited a camp run by an NGO at Sahel-Minaret. An image with St. Charbel surrounded by children was made and widely distributed. These few days spent in the midst of these poor, uprooted, and often unschooled children afforded the occasion to practise Christian charity and to see close up the physical and moral misery to be found in Lebanon. From this experience has grown the desire to repeat and increase our aid to the refugees, especially to the Christians. Plans for a camp for traditional Catholics in Lebanon and for the poor Christians for next summer are under way. The help and contributions of volunteers to bring it about would be most welcome. Our Lady of Lebanon, St. Charbel, and St. Rafqa, pray for us! For further information or to contribute, please write: Abbé Gregoire Chauvet École St-Jean-Bosco Allée des Platanes 01240 Marlieux Traditional Dominican Teaching Sisters of France Bid Adieux to Their Leaders We recommend to your prayers the repose of the soul of Reverend Mother Anne-Marie Simoulin, the first prioress of St. Dominique du Cammazou, Fanjeaux, and the first superior general of the congregation of the Dominican Teaching Sisters of the Holy Name of Jesus of Fanjeaux, piously deceased on Monday, June 16, 2014, in her 87th year of life and the 63rd year of her religious profession, fortified with the last rites of our holy Mother the Church. A requiem Mass with the body present was celebrated Wednesday, June 18, at Romagne. The funeral took place at Fanjeaux on Saturday, June 21, with interment following in the cemetery of the Congregation. We recommend to your prayers the repose of the soul of Reverend Mother Marie-François Dupouy, the first prioress of the Dominican school of St-Pré of the Immaculate Heart, Brignoles, and first prioress general of the congregation of the Dominican Teaching Sisters of the Holy Name of Jesus and of the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Saint-Pré, piously deceased on Tuesday, June 17, in her 95th year of life and the 72d year of her religious profession, fortified with the last rites of our Holy Mother the Church. Her funeral was celebrated at Saint-Pré on Monday, June 23, with interment following in the local cemetery of Congregation. (Source: Fideliter, Sept.-Oct. 2014, pp. 56-7) Blessed Paul VI! Oct. 18, 2014.—October 19, 2014, will go down in history as the day Giovanni Battista Montini was beatified by Pope Francis. Unjust outcome At the announcement of the beatification of the one who governed the Church during the turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s, some people were astonished, perhaps stirred, but very many, at the end of the day, will keep quiet. After all, what can be said against a beatification, since it is normally the culmination of a canonically regulated proceeding in which the virtues of the “servant of God” have been duly found to be heroic. But there are also proceedings that result in an unjust outcome. No beatification can belie reality, and the memory of the “Paul VI years” will not vanish all at once. To justify our refusal of this beatification, let us then recall the stubborn facts that form the fabric of Montini’s life. At the outset, one fixed principle should be stated: We have no intention, here or elsewhere, to judge the Pope’s soul; we shall merely recall a few examples, among thousands, apt to establish the following judgment: The actions of Paul VI were not those of a pope who ought to be set up as a model of Christian life. We do not deny, moreover, that this pope evinced certain qualities a cut above the ordinary. Were that not so, how else could he have risen to the sovereign pontificate? It is not reasonable merely to offer in explanation that his ideas were in the air. His adherence to progressive ideas was not the only thing going for him. For, in his day, 71 Church and World he was far from being the only one to be steeped in the [progressive] atmosphere. Cardinal Lercaro, the archbishop of Bologna, for example, was no less under its sway. The biographers of Paul VI, be they his thurifers (Huber, Guitton, Macchi, etc.) or his critics (Yves Chiron), have not failed to enumerate the qualities of Giovanni Battista Montini. Industrious, organized, intelligent, a talented orator, he enthused the Italian students as their chaplain at Rome. Of modest and dignified bearing, respectful, loyal in friendship, he was capable of remarkable acts of generosity on various occasions. If one may not know much about the state of his interior life, he was so desirous of a consecrated life that he considered entering a monastery and, ordained priest, he often retired for short stays with Benedictines. 72 The Angelus July - August 2014 Nor shall we contest that Paul VI affirmed several times his desire to be at the service of truth and of the Catholic faith, for he wished that the consciousness he had of his duty to defend them both to be known. Exceptionally in an age of heresy, he held as certain the doctrine of satisfaction by substitution in the mystery of the Passion. He was known to praise the merits of Thomism, though without, alas, himself being imbued by the teachings of the Angelic Doctor. We remember his profession of faith in 1968 and the encyclical Humanae Vitae, which is to his honor. Principal support of modern theologians Yet it is in the domain of the Faith, and more broadly of doctrine, that a difficulty first becomes apparent. The innovations in theology, advanced by names like Rahner, Schillebeeckx, or Chenu, did not start with the Council; and G. B. Montini’s interest in the unfortunate theological effrontery also dates from well before Vatican II. While he was in the service of Pius XII in the Roman Curia, he was the principal support of the theologians “in trouble” with the Vatican and the Holy Office. He considered Blondel’s philosophy “valid”; he defended Congar, Lubac, Guitton, and Mazzolari several times against harsh judgments or threatened sanctions. When the books of Karl Adam were about to be denounced to the Index, Msgr. Montini, one of the Pope’s right-hand men, hid them in his own quarters, and later quietly circulated them. This is heroic virtue? It was when G. B. Montini was archbishop of Milan that John XXIII convoked the Second Vatican Council. Between the first and second sessions, the sovereign pontiff succumbed to sickness. Elected was the man who took the name of Paul. He had put great hope in the Council; he confirmed its direction. Paul VI indisputably supported by his authority the seizure of power in Vatican II by the liberal wing of Cardinals Döpfner, Lercaro, Koenig, Liénart, Suenens, Alfrink, Frings, and Léger, to the detriment of the traditional wing represented by Cardinals Ottaviani, Siri, Agagianian, and Msgr. Carli, who had not forgotten the centuries-old heritage of which Pius XII, in his time, had shown himself to be the true depositary. Session after session, declaration after declaration, Paul VI, while exercising a certain moderation, supported “the revolution in tiara and cope” which unfolded before the bewildered eyes of the perceptive bishops. For the history books, Paul VI’s signature on disastrous documents like Lumen Gentium, Gaudium et Spes, Nostra Aetate, Unitatis Redintegratio will remain his own. Especially, Paul VI, who had been won over even before the Council to the principle of religious liberty, promulgated the declaration Dignitatis Humanae, which affirmed unambiguously what the predecessors of Paul VI had stigmatized as opposed to Catholic teaching. How can it be thought that the proclamation that false religions have a right to public worship and that the pressure subsequently put on the Catholic governments of the world to adopt secular constitutions are anyway indicative of virtue and holiness of life? Just think of the multitude of souls, swept along by the movement of secularization and the apostasy of the laws of nations, who lost the faith of their fathers. Doesn’t anybody bear some share of the responsibility? If Paul VI so loved this Council, it was because the general approach of the episcopal assembly corresponded with the intimate aspirations of his spirit. The Council was a movement of churchmen toward the world. Now Paul VI loved even the modern world; he desired to immerse himself in it and feel with it. Interested in every human reality, he corrected a pessimistic temperament by resolute optimism, sustaining a benevolent vision of even modern thought in distant lands and cultures. He prized contemporary art to the point of decorating his Vatican apartment in the style! Mankind center of his reflections What he loved in the world was man. Mankind was at the center of his reflections, even if at times he denounced anthropocentrism. From compassion, he was especially interested in the poor, the worker, the lapsed Catholic, the marginalized. “We more than any,” he said, “have the cult of man!” In order to draw near to man it would be necessary, thought Paul VI, to repent of so many attitudes characteristic of the Church in the past likely to put off souls, such as condemnations (whence the suppression of the Index), or too exclusive dogmatic affirmations. He preferred suggestion to government, exhortation to sanction. His was a reign of dialogue. To draw near to man meant first of all drawing closer to Protestants: Paul VI was the papal initiator of ecumenism. Even though he conceived it theoretically as a return to Catholicism, nonetheless contradictorily, he exalted the values of Protestants, and multiplied relations with Taizé. The scandal reached its height when he invited the Anglican “archbishop” of Canterbury to bless the crowd in his stead during an ecumenical assembly at St. Paul-outside-the-Walls, placing on his finger his pastoral ring. And we are asked to believe that saints do this kind of thing. What true blessed in heaven from the depths of the Beatific Vision would not start at the spectacle of such confusion? However, for Paul VI, our Catholic attitudes had to change. “The Church has entered into the 73 Church and World movement of history which evolves and changes,” he explained. Such was the program: evolution, change, aggiornamento. That is why, moreover, he proceeded with a liturgical reform that, in time, extended to every domain of prayer. The Mass, if one is to believe the foundational texts of this reform, was no longer a sacrifice, but a “synaxe.” Its rite, decried by Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci, “represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session 22 of the Council of Trent.” But nothing availed; the electric-guitar Masses, Communion in the hand, the short-skirted girls reading the Epistle, the words of Consecration subject to the mood of the celebrant—all of that was given a free hand by the bishops. It would be unjust, certainly, to put all the responsibility for every local disorder on the man responsible for the Universal Church. Besides, the Pope sometimes deplored the fine liturgical mess of the Novus Ordo Missae. But what effective measures did he take to prevent it? And was he not in fact the first cause of the disorder? Paul VI is being set before us as an archetype of perfection. But is not virtue achieved in doing one’s duty, and is not the duty of the leader to encourage those who do good and to punish lawbreakers? Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was judged without being heard, chastised before being received, and Paul VI thought him fit for an insane asylum. But the priests who celebrated Mass with rice or who demonstrated at the sides of Communists were left undisturbed in their comfortable rectories. And yet Paul VI did not love communism; he always warned against the perniciousness of Marxism. By what paradox, then, did he support a politics of good-will toward Communist countries (Ostpolitik), the fruits of which were so bitter for the Catholics in the concerned countries that they were penetrated by the feeling that they had been abandoned by Rome. In the same vein, Paul VI considered that one could be a Catholic and devote oneself to socialist ideals, contrary to the express words of Leo XIII. He was also quite hostile to fascism; his preference went to Christian Democracy. 74 The Angelus July - August 2014 Invasion of the spirit of the world All of these stances soon gave rise to opposition to Montini within the Curia. Pius XII was acquainted with his strong points, but distrusted his taste for modernity. During the Council, Paul VI met with the opposition of certain bishops, who then foresaw the crisis the Church was going to traverse. They were not mistaken. The crisis was terrible and remains so. Paul VI recognized it: “The opening to the world was a veritable invasion of the Church by the spirit of the world.” That pushed him to discouragement, coloring the last years of his pontificate with a marked sadness. “We have been perhaps too weak and imprudent,” he owned one day. The confession was his own; and I’d wager that had he been able to express an opinion, Paul VI would have dissuaded his successor from proclaiming him blessed. In this let us follow Paul VI’s lead. Let no animosity against his person tempt us; let only the acute awareness of the objectivity and permanence of Christian virtue move us. Let us not have anything against him, but everything for the right notion of what a blessed truly is. For if Paul VI is blessed, then it is virtuous for a pope to contradict his predecessors in fundamentals of doctrine; it is praiseworthy to abandon a Cardinal Mindszenty to the sad fate of persecution; it is not reprehensible to cover up frightful abuses in the liturgy of the Holy Sacrifice. If Paul VI is blessed, injustice is a virtue; imprudence is a path to holiness; revolution, the fruit of the gospel. (Translated from La Porte Latine, website of the French District of the SSPX.) 11 CDs – STK# 8630 – $39.95 2014 Angelus Press Conference Audio Recording The Mass This fall, Angelus Press welcomed over 500 souls who traveled to Kansas City to attend the 5th Annual Conference for Catholic Tradition. Over the weekend of October 10th, 11th, and 12th, a topic that is both vital to Catholic culture and to Catholic spirituality was considered and contemplated: The Mass, Heart of the Church. We encourage Catholics to listen to these talks and find a renewed source of Light, Strength, and Peace in attending the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass—which is the Heart of the Church. Presenting 13 important lectures from traditional Catholic speakers. -- The Symbolism of the Offertory (Fr. Daniel Couture, SSPX) -- The Mass in Times of Persecution ( Fr. Juan-Carlos Iscara, SSPX) -- Apologetics: What is Our Objection to the New Mass? (Fr. Daniel Themann, SSPX) -- The Spirituality of the Holy Sacrifice ( Fr. Patrick Rutledge, SSPX) -- Ecumenism: The Original Sin of the New Mass (John Vennari) -- The Motu Proprio and the Future of the Mass (Michael Matt) -- Luther and the Protestant Attack on the Church -- Archbishop Lefebvre and the Traditional Mass (Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, SSPX) -- The Mass as Vehicle of Catholic Culture (Andrew Clarendon, M.A.) -- Sermon at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church, Kansas City, Missouri (Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, SSPX) -- The Mass and Catholic Marriage ( Fr. Joseph Wood, SSPX) -- A Diocesan Priest Discovers the Traditional Mass (Fr. X) -- Conclusion ( Fr. Jürgen Wegner, SSPX) (John C. Rao, Ph.D.) www.angeluspress.org — 1-800-966-7337 Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music. Theological Studies The Future of Offensive War by Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani This article of Cardinal Ottaviani deals with the morality of today’s wars, and specifically of offensive war. Written in the aftermath of WWII, which claimed 60 millions souls, Ottaviani’s argument is that there is a difference in kind in modern-day war. The scale, attack on civilians, and spiritual consequences of warfare are reason enough to suggest that no one has a right to declare war. The cardinal requests the setting up of an international body which would be respected by all. This body exists today, the United Nations, and it is highly debatable whether it has really been impartial and efficient in most conflicts of the last fifty years. When two societies which are only materially distinct from each other come into collision neither is to be sacrificed to placate the other, but the interests of each are to be catered for in a rigidly fair manner. This principle is based on the fact that these two societies are of equal standing, enjoy therefore identical rights and have neither of them any legal advantage over the other; neither in fact is obliged 76 The Angelus September - October 2014 to waive any of its rights in favour of the other. On this account a balance in no way derogatory to either must be struck as accurately as is possible between the conflicting rights; for example, by dividing up the disputed matter (granted it is divisible) or by making compensation. At times indeed the right claimed on one side may be a putative one only, and that on the other side clearly unimpeachable (objective); or at least one rather than the other side clearly unimpeachable (objective); or at least one rather than the other may have a greater interest at stake or stronger grounds on which to quarrel. But even in situations such as these, peaceful methods of settling the issue must take precedence over all others. First of all, therefore, every effort should be made to establish the existence of whatever right is being claimed; then an attempt should be made to compose differences amicably; finally, should this fail, war must not be declared without first trying out certain coercive measures which, though of less consequence than war, may be equally effective in the circumstances. These last, indeed, are the only measures to be taken whenever it is clear that they of themselves can effect a settlement and avoid the disasters of war. But what of mediation, arbitration or an investigation by an international tribunal? Are not these also possible means? To me, indeed, they seem of so obligatory a nature that they alone are the only justifiable and lawful means of vindicating rights in present times; war is out of the question. It is important, however, to note with regard to this view that this is not the opinion of past centuries: in those days mediation, etc., were not considered the exclusive means of settling disputes between perfect or fully autonomous societies; they were at the most highly commendable from a humanitarian viewpoint. For, granting the concept of the sovereignty of every state, then each state, because of its very independence and perfection, was also possessed of the juridical power of safeguarding its rights even by force of arms. The state, it was held, had ample resources at its disposal with which to uphold its rights in face of an adversary struggling against or simply ignoring the obligations these rights imposed upon him. Warfare, however, was not to be indulged in merely because one had a just and proportionate cause with which to justify the action; it also had to be necessary to the preservation of the social wellbeing, and withal reasonably assured of success. The justification of war did not rest, therefore, on the presumption that war was as satisfactory as a duel between two private reasons: neither course proves on which side right and reason lie. No, the sole justification of recourse to warfare was on an occasion when there was little hope of appealing to, or—if a disputed right were in question—of getting a decision from an authority higher than the state. War could be used then to compel an adversary to make good some infringement of rights—but with the understanding that it was a physical instrument the only concern of which was to keep intact the moral implication of the right infringed. All the foregoing reasoning is cogent enough if we confine ourselves to a purely theoretical treatment of warfare. But in practice and in relation to present conditions the principles enunciated do not seem to hold. They were meant, we should remember, to cover warfare of a special kind, that between mercenary armies, and not our mammoth warfare which sometimes entails the total downfall of the nations at grips with each other; the principles, in fact, cannot be applied in the life of modern nations without doing serious damage to the particular peoples involved, and (leaving aside a question of a defensive war begun, under certain conditions, for the protection of the state from actual and unjust aggression) no state is justified any longer in resorting to warfare when some right has not been given its full due. Not that we for a moment wish to despise or belittle the theories of the great exponents of Christian international law! That would be unpardonable! The war of their treatises is not the war of our experience. The difference indeed is not even of the purely numerical or mathematical order; it goes much deeper. It affects the very principles governing war. Principles indeed derive from and vary with the nature of things; the difference between war as it was and war as we know it is precisely one of nature. At the Vatican Council the Fathers intimated to the Pope their desire that some definite statement be drawn up which might induce men to abandon warfare altogether or at least induce them to conduct their wars according to humanitarian principles. The salvation of certain Christian peoples was the chief cause of their concern; not simply because these peoples were then in the throes of war but “rather because of the horrible disaster” with which they were afflicted as a result of war. War, they were gravely troubled to note, was the occasion of disasters not the least of which, a lowering of moral standards, accompanied and persisted after war, and made shipwreck of the faith of so many souls. We in this century have even further cause for concern: a. On account of the great development of communication in modern times and the desire on the part of nations to extend their interests to all parts of the world, excuses for war are now all too frequent. b. The disasters which worried the Fathers at the Vatican Council now affect not only soldiers and armies at war but also entire peoples. c. The extent of the damage done to national assets by aerial warfare, and the dreadful weapons that have been introduced of late, is so great that 77 Theological Studies it leaves both vanquished and victor the poorer for years after. d. Innocent people, too, are liable to great injury from the weapons in current use: hatred is on that account excited above measure; extremely harsh reprisals are provoked; wars result which flout every provision of the jus gentium, and are marked by a savagery greater than ever. And what of the period immediately after a war? Does not it also provide an obvious pointer to the enormous and irreparable damage which war, the breeding place of hate and hurt, must do to the morals and manners of nations? e. In these days, when the world itself has become seemingly shrunken and straitened, the bonds between the nations of the world are so close and exigent that almost the whole world becomes involved once war is declared. f. A regime may be under the impression that it can engage in a just war with hope of success; but in fact secret weapons can be prepared to such effect nowadays that they, being unforeseen, can upset and utterly thwart all calculations. These considerations, and many others which might be adduced besides, show that modern wars can never fulfil those conditions which (as we stated earlier on in this essay) govern—theoretically—a just and lawful war. Moreover, no conceivable cause could ever be sufficient justification for the evils, the slaughter, the destruction, the moral and religious upheavals which war today entails. In practice, then, a declaration of war will never be justifiable. A defensive war even should never be undertaken unless a legitimate authority, with whom the decision rests, shall have both certainty of success and very solid proofs that the good accruing to the nation from the war will more than outweigh the untold evils which it will bring on the nation itself, and on the world in general. Otherwise the government of peoples would be no better than the reign of universal disaster, which, as the recent war has shown, will claim its victims more from the civilian population than from the combatant troops. In what way then shall international crises be dealt with on future occasions? “Discussion and force,” says Cicero, “are the main ways of settling quarrels, the former of which is peculiar to man, the latter to brute beasts.” The former therefore is ever to be preferred; the interests of 78 The Angelus September - October 2014 peace must be our chief concern ever—and it is not the forming of armies but the formation of minds which will best secure this. In this formation the weapons of charity, justice and truth shall be: a. A civil and religious education of nations which so disposes peoples (and hence the rulers chosen from them) to co-operation and to an honourable recognition and interchange of rights and obligations, that class bitterness, race enmity and imperial competition—than which there is no better kindling for wars—are entirely eliminated. b. The setting up of an international body whose pronouncements all nations and rules should respect. c. The inculcation among peoples of a spirit of brotherliness in accord with gospel principles; as a result each nation will be prepared to place the good of the whole human brotherhood before its own interests, in the manner in which individuals in any republic worthy of the name ought always to contribute to the common good from whatever they themselves possess. d. To render impossible totalitarian regimes, for they above all else are the turbulent sources from which wars break out. Moreover, should the representatives of any people (or the people themselves) ever have conclusive indications that their rulers are on the point of undertaking a war in which nothing but blood and ruin will be the lot of the nation, they should and ought to take just measures to overthrow that regime. Card. Alfredo Ottaviani, Institutiones Juris Publici Ecclesiastici, Vol. 1 (Jus Publicum Internum) Pars I, Titulus iii, art. 3 (Relationes societatum perfectarum in statu conflictus), Principium 2 (Vatican: Polyglot. 3rd Edition, 1947) pp. 149-55. English translation: Blackfriars, a monthly review. Edited by the English Dominicans. Published at Blackfriars, St. Giles, Oxford, Vol. XXX, September 1949, No. 354. Just War Catholic Doctrine and Some Modern Problems by Fr. Juan Carlos Iscara, SSPX “Virtual” War One of the indispensable conditions for a war to be just is that it be exercised with restraint. Modern “smart” weapons and “push-button warfare” threaten to end all restraint in the conduct of war by shielding one side from the realities of the horror of war. Kosovo provides a striking example; the objectives of the “international coalition” were achieved without a single NATO combat casualty. This raises serious questions about the nature of modern warfare. Classically, the moral justification of war is legitimate self-defense (in the broad sense, which includes the redressing of past injustices), in which there is a basic equality of risk in killing or being killed. The legitimacy of self-defense ends when one can kill with impunity. A war risks ceasing to be just when, for the soldier fighting at a distance, seeing the effects of his actions on a computer screen, death and destruction have little more reality than an arcade game.1 One facet of this shielding of one side from the horrors of warfare is the refusal by many governments even to use the term “war.” The United States serves as a prime example: since the Korean “conflict,” all constitutional procedures for war have been bypassed. Vietnam, Panama, Haiti, Somalia, Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, etc., have all seen “police actions” or co-ordinated operations of the “international community,” but, by a linguistic subterfuge, there has been no “war” since World War II. This subterfuge is necessary, since the constitution states that war must be declared in order to be legitimate. The modern world does not fight wars, but it engages in “strikes,” “coercive diplomacy,” and “humanitarian interventions.”2 The media play a central part in this linguistic chicanery, with their frequent touting of “human rights,” “democracy,” “freedom,” etc. Role of International Bodies As technology has made the world apparently much smaller, and as financial interdependence 79 Theological Studies has united many nations more closely by the strings of a common purse, the idea of stronger international cooperation or even of the fusion of all nations in a “One World” government has become commonplace in contemporary political discussion and planning. What must be thought of the idea of an international government? The answer to such a question is not at all as simple and straightforward as it may seem at first glance, and, although the questions of the existence of international law and the relationship between such law and national sovereignty are beyond the scope of the present article, it will be worthwhile to examine briefly the two possible concrete realizations of an international government. The goal of many of the world’s decision-makers is the realization of the ideal of a single world state. The idea is attractive in its simplicity, because wars result from quarrels between states. With only one state, there could be no more wars—a millennial realm of peace, perfect and secure life, would be thus ushered in! The radical flaw of this ideal is that such everlasting peace is to be built without Christ. For a Catholic, peace is not only, and not even primarily, a community of nations without wars. The source of peace is the Redemption, the restoration of the true order between God and men, the reconciliation with God and the rest of the soul, thus received again in communion with God—that is “the peace that the world cannot give.” Secondarily, therefore, peace is the order of justice in charity in the world—justice and charity rooted and founded in Christ.3 Moreover, serious political obstacles remain in the way of the realization of such an ideal. One such obstacle is the stubborn refusal by those who still have any sense of nationality to yield this sense in the face of “one-world” tendencies. The American national sense has proven surprisingly strong in the face of United Nations’ efforts to control the spread of mass-destruction weapons, to give just one example.4 Robert Wright, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, issued a stern warning to Americans holding obstinately to such “backward tendencies” when he wrote: “To remain attached to national sovereignty at all costs is not just wrong, it is impossible. If governments do not respond with new forms of interna- 80 The Angelus September - October 2014 tional organization, civilization as we know it could be over. The question is not whether we should relinquish our national sovereignty. The question is only how, either cautiously and systematically, or chaotically and catastrophically.”5 There are several good reasons to oppose such an ideal of international government. Not the least of these is the conflict such an ideal must wage with man’s natural inclinations to true patriotism and true nationalism. The ideal of political citizenship in the universal is chimerical.6 Another contrary argument is that states, like other “organisms,” have a certain definite size beyond which they cannot grow if they wish to survive. Despite the fact that this natural limit may vary, and that it is arguably increased by improved means of communication (the “world-wide web” is being used as an instrument for globalization), the true political unity necessary for the maintenance of a healthy state seems impossible beyond a certain limited extension. In any case, at present, real power is not located in the UN, but remains in the state-members that form it, particularly in the superpowers forming the Security Council, and in groups of states formed around a common purpose. To be subject of the jus ad bellum, the UN lacks sovereignty, cohesion in its policies and decisions, and an effective chain of command for the military forces placed in the midst of a conflict (as has been shown in Kosovo).7 The other possible concrete realization of an international government, and the more reasonable of the two, is the idea of a community of nations. This would be a federation of sovereign states that work closely together in the common interest. Such a federation, to be viable at all, would necessarily be based upon the model of the unity and integrity of the Church. It would thus have to be based on the natural law, even on God and Christ.8 For this type of co-operation to take place, a higher juridical unity would have to be established, on the temporal plane of international institutions. There should be no mistake, however, that the unity of states, languages, customs, civilizations, interests, etc., can only be achieved with reference to a common spiritual truth, that is, in the common faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. It should not come as a revelation that such a true international union is unlikely to be realized in the concrete contemporary situation, if the examples of the European Union or the United Nations are the basis of judgment. Having rejected Christ, the modern world still tries to achieve unity and everlasting peace on its own terms. But it is an attempt doomed to ever-recurring failure. Even more appalling, however, is the way in which the architects of the New World Order have enlisted the aid of the Church, acknowledging her experience in the field of unifying widely diverse peoples in a common aim. The secularist one-world advocates have brought the Conciliar Church into the constitution of a “movement of spiritual animation of the universal democracy,”9 and modern churchmen have dutifully complied, creating their own doctrine of unity without Christ, on the principle of “human dignity”—a secularist religion for a secularized world, of which the meetings of Assisi are but the founding stages. Closing Reflections Two final reminders of what our attitude as Catholics should be in times of war: First, we, as Catholics, should never talk of war in terms of freedom or democracy, but always in terms of justice. Our Lord blessed those “who hunger and thirst after justice” and those who are persecuted “for justice’ sake.” Of such is the kingdom of heaven, not of those who desire freedom above all, a liberty so elevated and absolute that it will necessarily attempt to free itself from dependence on God. In war, a nation that fights for freedom, without reference to justice, divorced as it were from the strict observance of the moral law, has no right to war, because it does not know why it wants to be free, or why it wants anyone else to be free. Catholics, in opposition to the spirit of the world, should think first and primarily in terms of justice. Whenever there is justice, there is true freedom. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.” Secondly, since the God of Justice is also the God of Love, it follows that although a war may be justified, it cannot be waged in a spirit of hatred. Because we have been truly injured, we tend to disguise the hatred for our enemies as love for justice. It is precisely because it is so easy to separate in this manner justice and charity that the Church cautions us in time of war: the condemnation of injustice cannot be separated from the appeal for charity and prayer. Justice may demand resistance to the aggressor’s physical assault, but charity demands prayer for his conversion, for his repentance from this onslaught against the justice of God. As an English Catholic newspaper put it during WWII: “Our Lord tells us not to fear those who can kill the body, and afterwards can do no more, but rather to fear him who has the power to send our body and our soul into the fire of hell. An immediate application of these words to our present situation is that we should not allow our enemy to induce us to fall into sin. It is the supreme issue for us in this war as in everything. The sins to which the enemy is most likely to tempt us are these three: sins of intemperance, sins of doubt, and sins of hate. Sins of intemperance, as when men depressed by war seek distraction in corporeal excess. Sins of doubt, as when men begin to question the goodness of God who allows such evil to befall them. And sins of hate, when men deny the enemy their charity. The important thing for us in these temporal incidents is to be on the side of Christ and of His charity. It is by no means enough that our cause should be just. For one could fight on the right side of this sense and yet defeat its righteous purpose by admitting a decline of temperance or trust or charity....”10 Selections from the article “Just War,” which originally appeared in The Angelus, July 2002. 1 Michael Ignatieff, Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond (New York: Picador, 2001), 161-162. 2 Ibid., 177. 3 See Heinrich A. Rommen, The State in Catholic Thought (St. Louis: Herder, 1955), 646-647. 4 Some ethicists have also pointed out that, after the horrific attack on September 11, there is no moral obligation for the United States to be held hostage to the veto power of the most timorous members of an international body, or of a military coalition. See “In a Time of War,” First Things, December 2001, p. 13. 5 The New York Times, Oct. 24, 2001. 6 “In a Time of War,” First Things, Dec. 2001, p. 14. 7 See James Turner Johnson, Morality and Contemporary Warfare (New Haven, Ct.: Yale University Press, 1984), 58-61. 8 Pius XII, Allocution to the Sacred College of Cardinals, Feb. 20, 1946. 9 Fr. Georges de Nantes is the creator of the term. 10 The Tablet (London), Aug. 3, 1940, pp. 97-98. 81 The Lepanto Lectures Our Exclusive Catholic History Audio Series! The Lepanto Lectures partnered with renowned Catholic speaker Mr. Christopher Check to release the following talks. The Cristeros and the Martyrs of the Mexican Revolutions 1 CD – 60 minutes STK# 8499 – $9.95 Amidst the terrors of an anti-Catholic government, an army of faithful Catholic Mexicans arose to defend the rights of Our Lord and His holy Church. They were the Cristeros, their battle cry was “Viva Cristo Rey,” and theirs is one of the greatest Catholic war stories of all time. Lepanto—The Battle That Saved the West 3 CDs – 94 minutes STK# 8458 – $29.95 On October 7, 1571, the most important sea battle in history was fought near the then Gulf of Lepanto. Although the battle decided the future of Europe, few Europeans, and even fewer European Americans, know the story, much less how close Western Europe came to suffering an Islamic conquest. Christopher Check tells the exhilarating story of Lepanto, first in his own words and then through the poem of G. K. Chesterton. The War of the Vendée As the French Revolution attempted to destroy both God and man, a number of French peasants from the Vendée, along with their nobility, rose up to defend the Sovereignty of Christ against the greatest terror the world had seen since the persecution of Diocletian. Truly inspiring! He tells of the French peasantry, and the nobility who joined them, who rose up to defend the Sovereignty of Christ against the greatest terror the world had seen since the persecutions of Diocletian, and nearly succeeded. Visit www.angeluspress.org — 1-800-966-7337 Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music. 1 CD – 60 minutes STK# 8546 – $9.95 500 Cards. – STK# 8627Q – $24.95 NEW from Angelus Press Catholic Trivia Game Traditional Version Educational and entertaining for the whole family. Contains two decks, each containing 250 cards; 1,500 questions in total. Test your knowledge of the Faith, with six categories: the Baltimore Catechism, the Latin Mass; History and the Liturgical Calendar; Popes, Patron Saints, and Other Pious People; Ritual, Symbol, and Doctrine; and everything else. Letters to the Editor Dear Angelus Press, I am worried that the Society has been getting soft on issues on which it used to speak its mind more forcefully. Not much has been said lately about the Synod of the Bishops on the Family. What about the gay marriages being accepted now in most of our States? What about the beatification of Pope Paul VI which has now taken place at the close of this infamous Synod? What of the situation of the Church in the United States with the new nominations and demise of our Church leaders in the face of the gay lobby? Dear Sir, I do thank you for the various suggestions you are making through this long list of questions. Your wording does sound somewhat like what we’ve heard a few years ago from the far side group attacking relentlessly Bishop Fellay for keeping the communications open with Rome. And I pray that you are not part of those who spend time, sweat, and ink over each comma written by our lawful leaders. This being said, The Angelus is a bimonthly magazine which can in no wise do the job of a website posting daily the latest rebuttal to the on-going attacks against Church and power. A daily paper written by journalists, this we do not claim to be and cannot offer. What—yes!—we wish to provide, through our Church and World section and in our main articles, are those principles which will guide our readers through the challenges presented by modern society or dissociety. The gut reaction and passionate fight is not our charism. We take things with more distance and perhaps not without keener perspective. Next, we ought never to forget that our battle is mainly spiritual. The political arena is not alien to us, but we address it in as much as it has a bearing on matters of faith, Church history, and morals, and there are certainly many such mixed areas. Just take the example of the just wage, usury, and authority in general. We wish we had perhaps more antennas around the world to give, ideally, a well-rounded bimonthly notice of the front lines with its wins and losses. Besides the major Vatican event, it is no little work to spotlight the more salient and relevant items in our ‘shopping’ list of the Church news. We are working on this and try to address all news, bad and good, which have an impact on the Faith and our Traditional world at large. To improve on this, we have plans to rejuvenate the News section and offer a broader spectrum with the appropriate comments, and we would be grateful for any suggestions you might have on this. 13 months — STK# Cal2015 — $12.95 Angelus Press 2015 Calendar The 2015 Liturgical Calendar presents inspiring photographs and works of art depicting the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Each month features a beautiful quote of Archbishop Lefebvre helping us understand better and reflect more deeply on the august nature of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, “the most beautiful thing this side of Heaven.” “Our objective today must be to restore to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass its due and rightful place, the place it has held in the Church’s history and doctrine.” —Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre O F N N ur Lord Jesus Christ’s goal was to offer Himself on the Cross. He came for no other reason. And the Mass is the continuation of the Cross; Our Lord’s goal is then to continue His Cross by the holy sacrifice of the Mass until the end of time. It seems that many souls have forgotten this. They have been looking for the source of grace in little devotions, in the recitation of certain personal prayers, in private devotions to this or that saint. –Archbishop Lefebvre, The Mass of All Time othing prepares us to receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist so well as meditating upon the holy sacrifice of the Mass, because the sacrifice of the Mass is a source of suggestions, encouragements, and thoughts that create in us dispositions of charity towards God and our neighbor. Our Lord’s sacrifice was indeed the greatest act of charity ever performed in the history of the human race. “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (Jn. 15:13). –Archbishop Lefebvre, The Mass of All Time or the glory of the most Blessed Trinity, for the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, for the love of the Church, for the love of the Pope, for the love of bishops, of priests, of all the faithful, for the salvation of the world, for the salvation of souls, keep this testament of Our Lord Jesus Christ! Keep the sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ! Keep the Mass of All Time! –Archbishop Lefebvre, Golden Jubilee Sermon ow, everything that happens from the Offertory and the Consecration to the Pater is the accomplishment of God’s love for us, and the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ for His Father. Consequently, the two essential commandments, which sum up the Decalogue, are realized in this part of the Mass. For can there be an act of love for God greater than the act accomplished by Our Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary? Jesus Christ, by dying on the Cross, manifested His infinite love for His Father, and this is accomplished again on our altars. –Archbishop Lefebvre, The Mass of All Time Visit www.angeluspress.org — 1-800-966-7337 Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music. Simply the Best Journal of Catholic Tradition Available! “Instaurare omnia in Christo” For over three decades, The Angelus has stood for Catholic truth, goodness, and beauty against a world gone mad. Our goal has always been the same: to show the glories of the Catholic Faith and to bear witness to the constant teaching of the Church in the midst of the modern crisis in which we find ourselves. 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One of his last words was: “I will give my life to prevent war and to spare the death of such a great number of young men” (Bishop Rumeau, Aug. 23, 1914, in SSPX Gastines Bulletin, Sept. 2014). Padre Pio added that this pope, the greatest after St. Peter said he, offered himself “as a propitiatory victim.” He died on August 20, 1914, practically the first victim of the dreadful calamity. Padre Pio wrote of Pius X’s unexpected death that “he was the first, the greatest, the most innocent victim of the fratricide war that deafened the whole of Europe with armies and weapons and filled it with terror.” Nevertheless the war came, one might object. Indeed, but it seems that it was intended to last much longer. The modern Goliaths had despised the energetic Davids and their little rosary slings. On May 5, 1917, Pope Benedict XV in his decree Regina Pacis begged the Queen of peace to intervene. She did indeed. An octave later, in a little Portuguese hamlet, she announced that “the war will end.” However it was going to take another year of intercession and supplication, and of the slaughter of how many millions more, for it to really come to an end. One day, Padre Pio admitted that the good Lord had granted to him the end of the war. On June 7, 1918, Padre Benedetto wrote to him: “The Almighty wants you as a victim of holocaust. You, a victim, must fulfil for your brothers what is still missing to the passion of Jesus.” The price came in an unsuspected manner: on September 20, 1918, he received the stigmata which he bore in his flesh for a solid 50 years. The war came to an end about a month later. “The continual prayer of a just man availeth much” (St. James 5:16). Thank you, St. Pius X and Padre Pio. God be with you. Father Daniel Couture (The source for this article is the excellent book by Antonio Socci, Il Segreto di Padre Pio [BUR Saggi, 2007], pp. 85-89.) The Society of St. Pius X is an international priestly society of common life without vows, whose purpose is the priesthood and that which pertains to it. The main goal of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X is to preserve the Catholic faith in its fullness and purity, to teach its truths, and to diffuse its virtues. Authentic spiritual life, the sacraments, and the traditional liturgy are its primary means of bringing this life of grace to souls. The Angelus aims at forming the whole man: we aspire to help deepen your spiritual life, nourish your studies, understand the history of Christendom, and restore Christian culture in every aspect. $ 9.00 RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO: THE ANGELUS, 480 MCKENZIE STREET, WINNIPEG, MB, R2W 5B9