“Instaurare omnia in Christo”

Politics
The Americanist Problem
Building Society
Liberalism and Integralism in America

January - February 2017

“And they sent to him their disciples with the
Herodians, saying: Master, we know that thou art a
true speaker, and teachest the way of God in truth,
neither carest thou for any man: for thou dost not
regard the person of men. Tell us therefore what dost
thou think, is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or
not? But Jesus knowing their wickedness, said: Why
do you tempt me, ye hypocrites? Shew me the coin
of the tribute. And they offered him a penny. And
Jesus saith to them: Whose image and inscription
is this? They say to him: Caesar’ s. Then he saith to
them: Render therefore to Caesar the things that are
Caesar’ s; and to God, the things that are God’ s. And
hearing this they wondered, and leaving him, went
their ways” (Mattthew 22:16-22).
Stainglass window, Church of St. Leo, Montreal

Letter
from the
Publisher
Dear readers,
Throughout this year, 2017, we will be seeing new faces on the geo-political horizon. In the
foreground, we will have a newly elected president of the United States, whose agenda is bound to
have ripple effects throughout much of the world. On the European front, things will also be on the
move.
The time may be right for us to return to basics and hold fast to the Christian perspective over
the government, society, and the nation’s philosophy of life. Those who set laws, run governments, and make history follow basic ideas and ideals and, unfortunately, also ideologies. However
removed these guidelines may seem to be from the truths of the catechism, they may profoundly
impact the salvation or damnation of millions of souls. What proofs do I have for stating this?
First, let me call attention to a resounding statement from that eminent pope and statesman
Pius XII, made on June 1, 1941 in the thick of World War II: “Of the form given to society, in harmony
or not with the divine laws, there depends and filters the good and evil of souls, that is to say, the
fact that men, all called to be vivified by the grace of Christ, breathe, in the contingencies of the
earthly course of life, the sane and life-giving air of the truth and the moral virtues, or, on the contrary, the morbid and often mortal virus of error and depravity.”
Next, another churchman writes, in Junes 2015, after the U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing
gay marriages, quoting Heraclitus, who used to say: “It is necessary that the people fight for the
law as they do for the walls of the city.” This churchman adds: “As I advanced in age, I discovered
the importance of legislation in man’s life. . . . The only two civilizations which have survived for
thousands of years are the same that have opposed homosexuality: the Jews and the Christians.
Where are today’s Assyrians? Where are today’s Babylonians? . . . Hence my first thought: we are
at the end.”
These words, delivered by a retired cardinal of the Church, no doubt sound apocalyptic to us.
Are we to cross our arms and bury our heads in the sand? It is high time for us to gather our forces,
as the same cardinal exclaims: “Believing families are the true fortresses. And the future is in the
hands of God.”
We are no better than our ancestors. If we are men of faith, if we preserve the heritage of our
fathers, if we stand firm in our beliefs and our morals, God will not abandon His little remnant.
Should we not often utter the words of the liturgy, “Our help is in the name of the Lord”? And like
David, facing the modern-day Goliath, it is time to shout our faith: “You are coming to me with
swords and armor. But I am coming to you in the name of the Lord of Hosts.”
Fr. Jürgen Wegner
Publisher

January - February 2017
Volume XL, Number 1
Publisher
Fr. Jürgen Wegner
Editor-in-Chief
Mr. James Vogel
Managing Editor
Fr. Dominique Bourmaud
Copy Editor
Mrs. Suzanne Hazan
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(Eindhoven, The Netherlands)
Mr. Simon Townshend
Director of Operations
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Contents
Letter from the Publisher

4

Theme: Politics
––The Americanist Problem
––Building Society
––Liberalism and Integralism in America
––The Spirit of ‘76
––From Americanism to the City of God

6
10
15
20
23

Faith and Morals
––The Purification
––The Americanist Heresy

28
34

Spirituality
––The Diaries of Monsignor Joseph C. Fenton
––Go Steady, Christian Soul!

38
44

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Christian Culture
––Politics and Cultural Americanism: Buy Their Fruits?
––Truth, Words, and Duty
––Why Do Children Lie?
––Questions and Answers

48
56
60
65

“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.
©2017 BY ANGELUS PRESS. OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE
PRIESTLY SOCIETY OF SAINT PIUS X FOR THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

News from Tradition
––Church and World
––A Diabolical Disorientation
––The Last Word

70
75
87

Theme Politics

The
Americanist
Problem
Two Aspects of the Americanist Problem:
Braquemart and the Prince von Sunmyra
by Dr. John Rao

Braquemart and the Prince von Sunmyra are
certainly not household names for Traditionalist
Catholics, especially in conjunction with the
subject of Americanism. Nevertheless, the
lesson to be learned from the men who bear
these appellations in Ernst Jünger’s novel, On
the Marble Cliffs (1939), seemed useful to me
with respect to Americanism from the moment
I first read this powerful work—so much so
that I ended my chief study of Church History
by calling attention to it. That lesson has been
on my mind still more this year as the global
socio-political situation has worsened, and
concerned and frustrated American Catholics
have pondered what they should do properly to
respond to it.
The protagonists of On the Marble Cliffs are
two siblings—the unnamed Narrator and Brother
6

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January - February 2017

Otho. Living lives of study on the edge of a city
called the Marina, both of them are horrified
by the growing threat presented to the civilized
order of their environment by the barbaric will
of a tyrant identified as the Oberförster and his
brutal, primitive, slavish minions.
Part of the reason why the brothers
understand the mounting danger is because they
realize that they themselves were once “part of
the problem” that gave rise to the malevolent
forces now nearing the Marina. They—like
Jünger in his real life involvement with what
he later came to believe to be all too parochialminded nationalist organizations—had once
“ridden with the Mauretanians”: one of the unruly
bands of warriors fighting in the confused wake
of the disastrous “war of the Alta Plana” that
seem to have aided the Oberförster’s cause. But

they had decided that it was necessary for them
to change their ways in order to prevent falling
into the abyss.
Change, in their case, meant making a clear
break with the mindless, militant activism that
at first had captivated them—though without
succumbing either to the rapidly degenerating
ethos of the once fully cultivated Marina or
even mere pursuit of decent but ultimately
directionless personal goals. This break, at least
to begin with, involved the inner man. On the
one hand, it required courageous resistance
to the charge of “defeatism” that the militant
would inevitably level against them for “retiring
from the fight.” On the other, it demanded rigid
commitment to the painstaking, systematic,
intellectual and spiritual labor of deepening their
understanding of the basic pillars of civilization
and the central problems bringing about its
current collapse.

beast. Describing the entire internal and external
character of the struggle at hand, the Narrator
tells us:
Now battle had to be joined, and therefore
men were needed to restore a new order, and
new theologians as well, to whom the evil was
manifest from its outward phenomena down to
its most subtle roots; then the time would come
for the first stroke of the consecrated sword,
piercing the darkness like a lightning flash. For
this reason individuals had the duty of living
in alliance with others, gathering the treasure
of a new rule of law. But the alliance had to be
stronger than before, and they more conscious of
it. (Chapter XX)

Return to the sources
It was this return ad fontes, to the sources—
which, in the brothers’ case, signified a literal
reexamination of natural plant life from a
cloister-like setting near the Marina by the
marble cliffs giving the novel its name. Still,
living an atomistic existence in pure tranquility
was not the ultimate goal of their project. It was
this “quiet time” that would prepare them to
reconnect with reality so as to reenter the fight
against the Oberförster more effectively.
Moreover, there was no question in their
mind of neglecting their former militant friends
during their temporary “leave.” For confused
though these former comrades-in-arms still
might seriously be, all of them nevertheless had
an instinctive sense of the evil brewing in their
troubled environment and its dire consequences.
The ultimate duty of the Narrator and Brother
Otho was to renew a stronger and more solid
alliance with their militant friends through their
personal study and spiritual reinvigoration.
This and this alone would guarantee that the
coming battle with the tyrant would lead to a
better world, and not simply the replacement of
one present monster with a different but similar

Ernst Jünger (29 March 1895 – 17 February 1998) was a
highly decorated German soldier, author, and entomologist
who became famous for his World War I memoir Storm of
Steel. In the aftermath of World War II Jünger was treated
with some suspicion as a possible fellow traveler of the Nazis.

Deeper Questions
Just as the threat to the Marina from the
Oberförster is about to burst into the open, the
brothers receive a visit to the marble cliffs
7

Theme Politics
from two representatives of the world they once
frequented; men of the sort they expected would
come to the fore once the situation worsened:
Braquemart and the Prince von Sunmyra, both of
them from the high nobility of a land called New
Burgundy.
Braquemart has an open contempt for the
tyrant and the primitive forest rabble that the
evil one has gathered up to do his bidding.
That contempt probably extended to the
decadent Marina rabble that the Narrator tells
us had begun to serve as a fifth column for
the Oberförster in the city itself. Braquemart
is courageous to the point of foolhardiness,
but his greater problem is that he possesses a
badly flawed understanding of the nature of
things and a disdain for correction. Due to his
arrogant refusal to look deeper questions in the
eye, he will not listen to the brothers’ deeper
knowledge of the basic difficulties facing all of
them. What this does, ironically, is to render the
supposed “man of action” incapable of judging
things properly on the pragmatic and prudential
level as well as on the theoretical plane. Hence,
his refusal to take seriously their “hands on”
experience of the reality of the brutal new order
of things, which the brothers’ recent visit to a
human slaughterhouse at a clearing in the woods
called Köppelsbeck has shockingly revealed to
them.
The Prince von Sunymara has other ultimately
rather pathetic troubles. Weak and sickly, he
seems barely able to lift himself up, much less
deal a deadly blow to a vicious enemy. And yet,
while saying almost absolutely nothing himself,
and leaving discussion of strategy to Braquemart,
the Prince’s whole demeanor nevertheless
demonstrates that he is clearly aware of the deep
spiritual and intellectual dimension of the threat
posed by the Oberförster. The humble aristocrat
is all powerless and ineffective brain and spirit;
his arrogant though ignorant colleague is all
mindless brawn.
After a deeply frustrating conversation,
Braquemart and the Prince leave to fight the evil
in the heart of the darkness over which the tyrant
already rules. The “cloistered” siblings have a
final glimpse of the two nobles on the marble
cliffs, seeing them in a Tabor-like “transformed”
8

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January - February 2017

state: in their best light, with the good that is
in each of them shining through. They wish
that Braquemart, the arrogant “technician of
power,” and the childish Prince, wandering
both enlightened as well as impotent “into the
woods where the wolves howl,” could unite their
obvious specific merits. This they are incapable
of doing. And that means that under their present
conditions they are nothing but helpless lambs
offering themselves up voluntarily for inevitable
slaughter.

Literary Debate
Who and what Ernst Jünger exactly had in
mind when writing On the Marble Cliffs has
been a subject of literary debate from the date
of its publication. There is no wonder that it
has often been seen as an anti-Hitler novel, and
the author—a Catholic convert at the end of
his life—unquestionably had his quarrel with
National Socialism. Still, Jünger had many other
modern socio-political enemies on his plate, with
Americanism and all that this signified among
them. And both Braquemart and the Prince
seem to me to provide an apt guide to two of the
many ills our national heresy inflicts upon men
whose potential good the Narrator and Brother
Otho saw clearly in their “transfiguration” on the
marble cliffs: 1) its arrogant closing of the mind
to the spiritual and intellectual problems that are
crucial to the life of individuals and the societies
in which they are taught and formed; and, 2)
its emasculation of the action of an otherwise
awakened intelligence and its reduction to the
character of a pathetic “head-banging” of no
danger to the existing anti-Catholic regime.
Americanism, along with that “Pluralism”
under whose name it has extended its influence
throughout the globe, claims that it is mankind’s
“last and best hope” for defending “freedom”
against tyrants such as the Oberförster. It
insists that it needs no further instruction due
to its already exceptional command of all of the
knowledge required for giving men life, liberty,
and happiness. It has nothing but a mixture of
contempt and pity for those insisting upon the
importance of examining first principles, whether

these be Catholic religious doctrines or those
philosophical concerns troubling Socrates, Plato,
Aristotle and their progeny. It “gets things done,”
while others simply engage in a divisive and
“fruitless” speculation; a quibbling displeasing
to the sternly anti-dogmatic Deist God of both
the bulk of the Founding Fathers as well as the
mindless contemporary American politician still
icing his speeches with reference to an utterly
vapid divinity.
But this closure of mind and spirit in the
name of unexamined pragmatic action makes
every Americanist a mere “technician of power,”
incapable of defining what “life,” “liberty,”
happiness,” and “tyranny” really are, and what
the “practical” itself actually means and entails.
Like Braquemart, it leaves the Americanist
with a hollow definition of these words only
with reference to what “works best for him.”
And this, as the Narrator tells us, reduces to an
arrogant willfulness distinguishable from that of
the Oberförster simply in that the unredeemed
Brauqemart ultimately wants to thwart the
tyrant’s nihilist destruction for destruction’s
sake so as to continue to manipulate the weak
to slave productively on the strong man’s
behalf. Americanism, in short, gives free rein
to the willful to maintain a world of productive
soullessness under the guise of fighting for a good
that it refuses to define, and any Catholic looking
to defend the reign of Christ the King with the
weapons that it provides is shooting himself in
the foot.
Alas, many Catholics still do believe that
they can—indeed that they are morally bound
to— fight “the Oberförster” precisely with
the arguments and weapons provided by the
Americanist and Pluralist armory. Awakened in
their Faith, they are aware of its demands and
eager to do battle for the Lord. But insofar as they
march “into the woods where the wolves howl”,
not merely together with but under the very
banners of the “technicians of power,” they are
lambs headed for the slaughter. For Americanism
turns every noble soul who takes it seriously into
replicas of Prince von Sunmyra, incapable, as the
Narrator laments, of even standing up straight,
much less aiming a shot at anything else than his
own heart.

Americanist Doctrine
Yes, Americanism allows its victims to mumble
their doctrines to themselves and dream that
they are fighting for the victory of a good cause
as much as they want—at least for now. But it can
never permit the triumph of a cause like that of
Christ as King, whose goal has more substance
to it than simply praising “what works,” lest the
“divisiveness” that emerges from questioning the
morality of such “pragmatism” block “the last
and best hope for mankind” from defending a
“freedom for all” that amounts to nothing other
than carte blanche for willfulness.
A Prince von Sunmyra who wishes to stand
up straight under the banner of Americanism
can only do so if he becomes a Braquemart who
refuses to think straight, or even think at all. A
Braquemart who wishes to think straight under
the banner of Americanism can only do so if he
becomes a Prince von Sunmyra who wanders
foolishly “into the woods where the wolves
howl,” straight to his own destruction. Only
that “transformation in Christ” suggested by the
Narrator can obtain a different result. And that
happy result, in 2017, still, first and foremost,
requires our inner and much more total break
with each and every aspect of the national heresy,
whose character I have only briefly touched upon
here. I fear that we are not yet sufficiently weaned
of the influence of the threat represented by the
evil of Americanism to do effective battle for
Christ the King. We need more Truth and nothing
but the Truth to fight that glorious combat,
and the way to assure access to it is to kill
Americanism stone dead in our own souls now.

John Rao, Ph.D., is a professor of history at
St. John’s University in New York, New York.
He is the author of Removing the Blindfold,
in addition to articles written for The Angelus,
The Remnant, and other periodicals.

9

Theme Politics

Building
Society
by Fr. Michael McMahon, SSPX

Angelus Press: What role should the school
play in the social formation of a child?
Fr. McMahon: As we know man is both
material and spiritual, having a body and a soul,
and this human nature is also social. Simply
put, man is meant by his very nature—body and
soul—to live in society, in community with his

10

The Angelus

January - February 2017

fellow man. This is the very essence created
by Almighty God. The stupidity of “social
contracts” and “noble savages” aside, common
sense, sound philosophy, and long experience
clearly demonstrate the most basic need from
cradle to grave of one man for another. Walk
to your kitchen, open up the refrigerator door

and pull out something to eat; now stop and
think for a moment on the multitude of social
interdependencies implied in this simple and
mundane action before you eat that piece of
mom’s chocolate cake.
Angelus Press: Sounds delicious, but what of
the school’s role?
Fr. McMahon: A complete school, one perfect
in the philosophical sense, must form a man in
the totality of his nature. Educators must leave
nothing to chance, but must carefully construct
a curriculum which aims at forming body, soul
and the social aspect of human nature. Rolling
the balls out, for example, at gym class with no
care to order and organization, with no plan or
purpose is a dereliction of duty and basically a
waste of time. Each hour and facet of the school
day must be meticulously planned and supervised
with a keen eye to formation. What goes for the
body in physical education and the intellect in the
classroom must go as well for social formation.
Thus it is incumbent upon those in charge to be
cognizant of the need to direct and form their
students socially, to form this nature which God
has made.
Angelus Press: Father, the need is obvious,
as obvious as human nature itself, but how is it
done?
Fr. McMahon: Before answering how, it
would be first important to describe what. The
essence of living in society, whether it is in the
basic unit of the family or any other group or
organization, is an understanding of and service
to the common good and proper order of that
community. Thus correct formation in view of the
individual taking his proper place within society

will focus there; constructing an environment
which fosters this knowledge and service. A
great work by teachers and administrators will
be their vigilance in first the selfless recognition
of neighbor, then of a common good or goal, and
one’s own role in being a member and also a
servant of both. You can already see that a man
must possess humility, knowing he holds a place,
plays a role in a larger community, thus accepting
a responsibility to fulfill his duties to family,
school, country and Church. “Get out of your
own bellybutton” is a frequent refrain familiar to
my students. In other words, stop thinking only
of yourself, your needs, your comfort and be a
man—recognize your duties and responsibilities
to your neighbor, to your class, to the Academy,
and to the Mystical Body. It is truly a beautiful
thing to see a young man blossom from the
immature, pure receiver to a generous giver and
contributor.
Angelus Press: Is there more “what”?
Fr. McMahon: Certainly. The goal is a wellformed man who understands that he is to serve
a good greater than himself, more important
than his own likes, dislikes, whims, and desires;
that he is not “A#1, top of the list nor king of the
hill.” In one word, he is meant to be a gentleman.
This concept is so important that it demands
definition and explanation. The dictionary can
get us started: A man whose conduct conforms
to a high standard of propriety or correct
behavior. This gentleman must be of noble and
strong character, one carefully formed and
solidly founded upon perennial principles, both
of reason and faith. A Catholic gentleman—and
in the most profound sense there can be no
other—is simply a man grounded in reality

11

Theme Politics
and common sense with a flowering of virtues
both natural and supernatural. The maturity of
this man, actually a very serious definition of
maturity itself, will be the recognition of reality—
reality as God has made it, and as His Divine
Providence governs it.
Angelus Press: “How” now?
Fr. McMahon: There is even more to say on
the “what” but given the intended brevity of this
interview, we can pass to “how.” Social formation
must begin at home, and remain concurrent while
a child is at school. This is a serious parental
responsibility since the primary end or reason
for matrimony is the begetting and educating
of children. The primary educators of a child
are mom and dad, as natural law and Holy
Church teach and maintain. These rights must
be respected and, of course the accompanying
duties reasonably and vigorously performed

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January - February 2017

even as a good school is entrusted with the care
of a child. Responsible parents know well the
need for schools which provide what cannot
be given at home alone. Homeschooling will
always be an emergency measure, dictated by
necessity, never an ideal. For all the so-called
success stories like a Tim Tebow (N.B.: a die-hard
evangelical whose “pastor” father has devoted
his life to “converting” Catholic Filipinos to
“Christianity” with periodic help from Tebow
himself), there is simply too much solid theory,
history, and experience which shows otherwise.
The properly organized school, with the means
at its disposal, will continue and strive to perfect
the formation begun at home in terms of ordered
and hierarchical social interaction and virtue.
Especially for boys who must become men—
mature, strong and virtuous—the environment
provided by a good Catholic school is essential.
A young man is meant to be disciplined and

challenged, in order to grow, expand and to
conquer. The proper environment will foster
and develop that virile spirit of the crusaders,
explorers and missionaries. As the great
Chrysostom stated: “You have been armed, O
Christian man, not to tarry and remain idle, but
to sally forth to battle.”
Angelus Press: Does a boarding school
outperform a day school?
Fr. McMahon: Having been educated
myself at day schools, and now with 17 years
of experience teaching, counseling, and
administrating both day and boarding schools,
the latter is clearly superior, especially socially
for young men. The unity of purpose and
direction alone in a properly run boarding school
ensures this success. The history of Catholic
education, especially in nations with strong and
solid Catholic roots, speaks volumes on this
preference. Proper courtesy, manners, dedication
to duty through demanding chores with
organizational and management responsibilities,
etc. are easier to instill in a boarding school. On
the surface, much of this can be done at home,
but not with numerous and diverse peers, nor
within such a hierarchy. To quote Dr. Brian
McCall, one of the very best current Catholic
thinkers:
“Schools introduce more hierarchy with
different grade levels, teachers, and principals.
Boarding schools, particularly a religious
one, present a living organic hierarchical
community. The students do not only interact
with their academic class, but must function in
a hierarchical society, day and night. They must
work their way through the levels of hierarchy
appreciating the good and burdens of each. If
there are priests, religious, lay teachers, and staff
there are even more distinctions of inequality
that play a role in formation.”
Angelus Press: Don’t the boys become too
independent away from home and parents?
Fr. McMahon: Distinction: Properly
independent, Yes; Too independent, No. Social
formation, being an exercise to instill virtue,
will demand balance—in medio stat virtus. The
goal is to form a Catholic man, one capable of

living a strong and vibrant Catholic life today, in
this world, today’s world. We need virtuous men,
meaning strong men, capable of crushing human
respect, dedicated to truth, and standing firm for
the social rights of Christ the King. This type of
man, a sane and saintly man, must have a strong
will, strong enough to docilely submit itself to
the will of God, and yet also strong enough to
defy an immoral and godless world. The Catholic
boarding school provides the necessarily safe
environment in which a teenage boy can grow
and develop under judicious and religious
supervision into a mature young man capable
of recognizing reality with an appreciation and
exercise of true liberty—the “liberty of the sons
of God.” A monumental task, yet a crucial one for
the glory of God and salvation of souls.
Angelus Press: Excellent Father, but we need
to close for now. Any final words?
Fr. McMahon: I would be remiss if I
neglected to speak about the intense communal
spiritual life afforded by the boarding school,
which contributes not only to the personal
sanctification of a young man, but also to the
fortification of the Mystical Body of Christ. Each
member properly vivified and strengthened
makes up what “is lacking in the Body of Christ.”
Access to daily Mass, frequent confessions,
chapels that are a short walk from bunkrooms,
constant priestly and religious presence, the
Divine Office, and prayer in common throughout
the day—these are irreplaceable in the formative
years. This well-structured, disciplined, and
religious environment forms a truly Catholic
esprit de corps, laying the foundations on the
solid rock of ordered charity—the love of God
above all, and the love of neighbor as oneself for
the love of God. Let me conclude with the bold
words of a man’s man, Saint Boniface:
“I yearn to go forth where the dangers are, not
because I particularly enjoy those dangers, but
because I know it is there that the battle rages
for the souls of men and nations. God set me
before the front lines. Let me not end my days in
comfort and complacency... Run towards the roar
of the lion! Run towards the roar of battle! That
is where Christ’s most glorious victories shall be
won!”
13

196 pp. – Softcover – STK# 8623 – $14.95

Removing the Blindfold
19th-Century Catholics and the Myth of Modern Freedom
Dr. John Rao

Among American Catholics, there is a certain unwillingness to see anything amiss with modern civilization
as embodied in the American dream of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Often, this is because the
only alternatives to democracy we know are the much more frightening specters of socialism and communism. To many, it seems the only way to have an effective voice in the American political arena is to align ourselves with the so-called conservative “Right.” Yet if we follow the logic of the “Right” today, we may wonder
why people who support individual rights and freedom of conscience in the economic and political realm are
so vehemently opposed to the supremacy of individual rights and freedom of conscience in the moral realm.
Many Catholics give up following the logic at this point and cast their vote in favor of freedom of conscience
as the most important principle—because it is the most advantageous to them at this moment.
The Catholic Church, however, has never been concerned primarily with what is the most advantageous
political system at a given point in history, but rather with the truth.
In Removing the Blindfold, Dr. John Rao explains the conundrum that modern Catholics face in dealing with
the current socio-political climate and traces the roots of this problem back to the French Revolution and the
principles it espoused. He shows how most modern Catholics have embraced some form of revolutionary
thought without even being aware of it, and reveals how revolutionary ideals are incompatible with Church
teaching, and always have been.

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see
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Liberalism
and
Integralism
by Gabriel S. Sanchez

The 2016 Presidential Election has come and
gone. No matter who prevailed, there was little
expectation going in that the result would do
anything except further polarize much of the
country. Catholics of various ideological stripes
took to social media and other, arguably more
savory, outlets to stump for their preferred
candidate, often relying on attenuated arguments
to “prove” that the Church’s social magisterium
dictated voting for mainline Candidate A over
Candidate B (or vice versa). Some opted to
keep faith with Catholic philosopher Alasdair
MacIntyre’s provocative dictate: “When offered
a choice between two politically intolerable
alternatives, it is important to choose neither.”
Who can blame them? Long past are the days
when the American faithful could expect to
find authentically Catholic political candidates,

particularly at the national level. Indeed,
arguments have been put forth that no Catholic,
regardless of the strength of his convictions, can
live out his faith fully in public office; the forces
of liberal secularism, and the temptation to
compromise with them, are simply too powerful.
Moreover, the faithful have seen time and again
the promises of ostensibly “pro-life” candidates
go unfulfilled while the highest court of in the
land—comprised mostly of Catholics!—issues
rulings contrary to natural and divine law.
And yet American Catholics press on with the
hope that liberalism, in either its Republican or
Democratic guise, will save them. For more than
a century, Catholics have been told there is no
contradiction between being a “good American”
and a “good Catholic” despite the fact that the
United States, from its inception, professed
15

Theme Politics
liberal dogmas contrary to Catholic teaching.
People may fight over the “true” or “original”
meaning of documents such as the Declaration of
Independence and the Constitution of the United
States, but the reality is that when it comes to
religion, particularly the true religion which is
Catholicism, America has no place for it in public
life. At best, religion is a “private affair” to be
“tolerated”; once it openly contradicts the liberal
Zeitgeist, however, the Faith becomes anathema.

The Integralist Thesis
Many, perhaps most, Catholics, including those
who define themselves as “traditional,” don’t
want to hear any of this. It’s too unsettling. They
would prefer instead to believe that even though
liberalism is rotten right now, it will get better
in the future so long as the “right candidates”

take office and pass “good laws.” Lost is the
understanding that liberalism, at its core, is
antithetical to the Catholic Faith—a point made
repeatedly by numerous holy popes, bishops,
theologians, and philosophers from the 18th
century onward. Liberalism, for example, rejects
the social kingship of Christ. His rule must yield
to the will of the people, no matter how barking
mad their transient wants and desires may be.
As for the Church, her only respectable place is
off in the corner and her voice, should it ever be
heard, must never speak against the amorphous
values of liberal ideology and certainly not about
man’s true and final end, which is Heaven.
This is nothing less than a perverse reversal
of the proper relationship between Church and
State, one which is now so engrained in the ethos
of the United States that few American Catholics
bother to question it anymore. What should be
recognized as an undeniable tension between

Reflection of the St. Patrick’s cathedral in the facades of the surrounding buildings.

16

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January - February 2017

what the Church teaches concerning spiritual
and temporal authority and what liberalism
professes is, more often than not, ignored.
Thankfully, however, a small but growing
number of Catholics are reclaiming the
integralist thesis, namely the true and proper
understanding of how the ecclesiastical relates
to the earthly. This has been summed up neatly
by the American-born theologian Pater Edmund
Waldstein, O.Cist.
“Catholic Integralism is a tradition of thought
that rejects the liberal separation of politics
from concern with the end of human life, holding
that political rule must order man to his final
goal. Since, however, man has both a temporal
and an eternal end, integralism holds that
there are two powers that rule him: a temporal
power and a spiritual power. And since man’s
temporal end is subordinated to his eternal end
the temporal power must be subordinated to the
spiritual power.”
While some charge that integralism is little
more than a form of Catholic reactionary politics
that arose in the wake of the 1789 French
Revolution, its foundation can be found in Pope
St. Gelasius’s famous fifth-century letter to
the Emperor Anastasius, which Waldstein and
other integralist thinkers have cited. Here is an
extended excerpt.

most clement son, that while you are permitted
honorably to rule over human kind, yet in divine
matters you bend your neck devotedly to the
bishops and await from them the means of your
salvation. In the reception and proper disposition
of the heavenly sacraments you recognize that
you should be subordinate rather than superior
to the religious order, and that in these things
you depend on their judgment rather than wish
to bend them to your will. If the ministers of
religion, recognizing the supremacy granted
you from heaven in matters affecting the public
order, obey your laws, lest otherwise they
might obstruct the course of secular affairs by
irrelevant considerations, with what readiness
should you not yield them obedience to whom is
assigned the dispensing of the sacred mysteries
of religion?” (For a collection of Pater Edmund
Waldstein’s articles on integralism, along with
other integralist pieces by this author and others,
see The Josias, http://www.thejosias.com/.)

Integralism in America
Waldstein’s words, and indeed the historic
testimony of St. Gelasius, may seem far removed
from contemporary American political reality,
but that does not make them irrelevant. Man’s

“Since, man has both a temporal and an eternal end,
integralism holds that there are two powers that rule him:
a temporal power and a spiritual power. And since man’s
temporal end is subordinated to his eternal end the temporal
power must be subordinated to the spiritual power.”
Fr. Edmund Waldstein

“There are two, august Emperor, by which
this world is chiefly ruled, namely, the sacred
authority (auctoritas sacrata) of the priests
and the royal power (regalis potestas). Of these,
that of the priests is weightier, since they have
to render an account for even the kings of men
in the divine judgment. You are also aware,

final end and political truth are, after all,
never irrelevant. What is sorely missing today
are the right institutions (and, further, the
right institutional arrangements) to make the
integralist thesis a reality at the highest levels of
governance. Further exacerbating the problem
is that the Catholic Church, particularly in
17

Theme Politics
America, has lost its nerve, so-to-speak. Few
in the American hierarchy are willing to call
liberalism on the carpet for subverting the rights
of Our Lord Jesus Christ over society, and it
appears none would go so far as to condemn
liberalism outright as an ideological pathology
that openly attacks man’s soul.
None of this means that faithful Catholics
cannot live their lives in solidarity with the
integralist thesis. For instance, when the
demands of the world contradict the express
teachings of the Church, instead of seeking a
compromise or some way to “finesse” the truth in
order to meet the world’s demands first, Catholics
should humbly submit to what God, through the
Church, has called them to do. This may mean
scheduling vacation and personal days at work
around specific holy days or not participating in
particular secular celebrations in order to better
keep the liturgical seasons of the year, such as
Advent and Lent.
For Catholics who are involved in public life
to some degree, including the legal profession,
extreme care should be taken not to engage in
any activity or take any case that is likely to
defy natural or divine law. Catholic lawyers
should eschew promoting the destruction of
families by thoughtlessly taking divorce cases
and refuse to put themselves in the service of
clients, particularly corporations, which wish
to use the law as a tool for exploiting laborers,
damaging the environment, or any other immoral
end clearly condemned by the Catholic Church.
This will not be easy, of course; but at some point
all Catholics must ask themselves, “Will I be a
follower of the world or a follower of Christ?”
At a smaller but crucial level, all Catholics,
regardless of their station in life, can hold true
to the integralist thesis by simply refusing to
submit to the liberal decree that their faith should
be private. Catholics ought to make time to pray
every day, and especially during meals, whether
at the workplace or a public restaurant. Those
who find themselves commuting to and from
work each day should feel no shame in reciting
the Rosary on the bus or train, nor should they
shy away from speaking openly and honesty
about Christ and His Blessed Mother. These small
18

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January - February 2017

acts, these modest but beautiful professions of
faith, are hardly irrelevant in a society that has
lost sight of the one thing it needs above all else,
and that is Salvation which comes only from God.

A Horizon beyond Liberalism
The political philosopher Leo Strauss, in
his 1932 review of Carl Schmitt’s provocative
book The Concept of the Political, opined that
a “horizon beyond liberalism” was required to
both critique and overcome liberalism. Despite
Schmitt’s best efforts to lay waste to liberal
ideology, Strauss thought that Schmitt was still
too beholden to liberal categories of thought.
Whether that’s accurate or not is neither here
nor there. What is known is that Strauss spent
the next four decades of his life looking for that
horizon in classical and medieval philosophy,
especially the works of Plato. On a natural level,
Strauss’s instincts were in the right place; but
being an atheist Jew, Strauss privileged reason
as the sole reservoir of truth over-and-against
revelation.
Catholics, on the other hand, have access
to the fullness of truth through Holy Mother
Church—reason and revelation, Athens and
Jerusalem. The integralist thesis provides the
very horizon Strauss was looking for. It serves
as both a powerful critique of liberalism and
shows the means to overcome it by nothing
more than a return to the right relationship
between the spiritual and temporal authorities.
Comprehending that relationship is, of course,
not the same as actualizing it, and in these
troubled times it is far easier to either give in to
despair or slide into apathy rather than to stand
firm in life for the truth. But at a period in history
when man has reached a point of unprecedented
confusion over the purpose and end of life itself,
and at the same time constructed a totalizing
ideology in liberalism that actively upholds this
confusion, Catholics cannot withdraw from the
field of battle. Now is the moment to stand firm
for the Faith, to offer prayers to Christ and His
Saints, and never relinquish the hope that God
will see all things through in His infinite wisdom
and love.

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Theme Politics

The Spirit
of ‘76
by a Benedictine monk

In this beautiful country of the United States,
“we the people” that compose it are Americans.
The word “Americanism” can cause a dilemma.
We can be confused between an error condemned
by the pope and our love for our country. Our
Founding Fathers, from the pilgrims on the
Mayflower to the pioneers on the western frontier,
were essentially concerned with survival. If we
consider the very hostile and bitter elements of
nature and the upheavals of the European and
Native American nations, the American people
were obliged to fight for survival. The fighting
spirit of our pioneering ancestors was often called
The Spirit of ’76. Just as we can understand
Americanism in two ways, the Spirit of ’76 can
be interpreted in two ways: a strong character
showing the virtue of fortitude, or a revolutionary
attitude throwing off all authority.
20

The Angelus

January - February 2017

The Spirit of ‘76 refers to the spirit of the
American Revolution, which was, in a certain
way, the forerunner of the French Revolution.
The French elite, in their pleasant Parisian
tea-rooms, were philosophically preparing
a revolution against God, and as a result the
French kingdom was overthrown and most of
the “tea-room philosophers” were beheaded.
Our Founding Fathers were familiar with this
French “philosophy of illumination.” They were
heavily influenced by these errors long before
the two revolutions were fought. The American
Revolution was a continuation of the EnglishFrench hostilities on American soil and a trial run
of the anti-Catholic French Revolution. These two
Revolutions seemed to have infused a sense of
self-sufficiency to the American population and
mistrust of European authority. America made her

“Declaration of Independence” to the world, and
unfortunately to God as well.
In 1899, Pope Leo XIII had to deal with this
spirit that found its way into the souls of American
Catholic clergy and laity. Some of the American
Catholics seemed to think that the Church should
change or camouflage her doctrine in order
to adapt herself to the American enterprise,
tainted by the erroneous principles of the French
Revolution. With great charity, the pope expressed
himself clearly and firmly in order to preserve the
deposit of faith. In general, the American clergy
and faithful accepted the correction.
The second Vatican Council seemed to
introduce yet a third revolution. What Leo XIII had
condemned as an error in 1899, was now, in the
name of ecumenism, presented as a new pastoral
approach. Precaution was taken to avoid offending
our separated brethren, even to the point of
camouflaging doctrine and introducing liturgical
changes affecting the faith. The churchmen of
Vatican II were promising to adapt the Church to
the spirit of the world. Americanism or the Spirit
of ’76 was ushered into the Church. Strangely
enough, it was the authority of Rome that seemed
to impose these errors on the faithful. In the
following decades, nearly 80,000 priests left the
priesthood and the horrendous crisis that we
all know was upon us. The very survival of the
priesthood was at stake, something had to be
done.
Like the Vendée of the French Revolution,
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Bishop De Castro
Mayer, a handful of priests and religious, and
a small group of faithful from across the world
refused to adapt the deposit of the Catholic faith
to our modern times. For their efforts, they were
labeled as rebels and revolutionaries. In all reality
they were energetically trying to maintain order
and peace in the midst of the modernist crisis.
To do this they required the gift of fortitude. This
brings us to the positive way of interpreting the
Spirit of ’76.
The first Americans trying to survive the
hardships of our continent can be compared
to Archbishop Lefebvre and all those trying to
survive the terrible confusion of the Vatican
II crisis. It took a great love of the Church and
fortitude to oppose error, especially when

presented by priests, bishops, or popes. The crisis
in the Church continues and the gift of fortitude is
necessary today more than ever.
Today’s Catholic priests, bishops, or pope no
longer receive automatic respect from the faithful,
as was previously the case; they are now obliged
to merit it. Experience shows that the faithful
must compare the teaching of the clergy to the
past teaching of the Church. If we consider the
past betrayals experienced by the faithful, this
attitude is understandable, although unfortunate.
Priestly authority is certainly under attack by
Americanism, even by those that are trying to
live their Catholic faith. The only way a priest can
restore confidence in his authority is to clearly
teach Catholic doctrine and morals by word and
example.
Both clergy and laity must avoid falling into the
errors of Americanism by being intensely united
to God through charity. Both must reestablish
confidence in the legitimate authority flowing
forth from God. The laity must listen to their
priest. He in turn must listen to his superior who
is obliged to listen to God and His laws. We must
adapt ourselves to God and not try to put God into
our mold.
The real solution can be found in the Rule of St.
Benedict: “Prefer nothing to Christ.”
This is the true Spirit of ’76 capable of
sacrificing all for the love of God and country.

21

The City of God
Against the Pagans
(Latin: De ciuitate
Dei contra paganos),
often called The City
of God, is a book of
Christian philosophy
written in Latin by
Augustine of Hippo in
the early 5th century
AD. The book was in
response to allegations
that Christianity
brought about the
decline of Rome and
is considered one
of Augustine’s most
important works.
As a work of one of
the most influential
Church Fathers,
The City of God is a
cornerstone of Western
thought, expounding
on many profound
questions of theology,
such as the suffering
of the righteous, the
existence of evil,
the conflict between
free will and divine
omniscience, and the
doctrine of original
sin.

From
Americanism
to the City
of God
by Gabriel S. Sanchez

Thomas Storck and Brian M. McCall, two
towering writers in the field of Catholic social
teaching, have both released books in recent
years which wrestle with the social, political,
and economic crises of our time—crises
which cannot be divorced from the ongoing
ecclesiastical crisis that has plagued the Catholic
Church for half-a-century.

How Did We Get Here?
Storck, who has written on Catholic social
and economic thought for over three decades,
has pulled together a collection of his more
recent magazine and journal pieces in From
Christendom to Americanism and Beyond:
The Long Jagged Trail to a Postmodern Void

(Angelico Press 2015). Rather than be read
as a straightforward history of modernityto-postmodernity, Storck’s book should be
approached as an extended meditation on the
waning days of Christendom during the period
wrongly labeled as “the Enlightenment” before
exploring the most destructive and widespread
ideology of the last 300 years: liberalism. For only
by unmasking the roots of liberalism can Storck
accurately track the rise of Americanism, that is,
the idolization of the United States’s experiment
in liberal democracy at the expense of Catholic
truth. Storck, it should be noted, is neither an
alarmist nor a reactionary in the emptyheaded,
kneejerk sense. He, however, an astute analyst
of the modern age who isn’t afraid to sound the
alarm when the forces of secularism threaten
the right understanding of the proper Christian
23

Theme Politics
political order. In that sense, we might think
of him standing in the tradition of Continental
Catholic political theorists such as Joseph de
Maistre, Louise de Bonald, and Juan Donoso
Cortes despite his aptitude for cultivating the
slightly more moderating tones of Anglophone
Catholic writers like G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire
Belloc.
Speaking of Chesterton and Belloc, it is
impossible to understand the whole of Storck’s
thinking without appreciating his adherence
to Distributist political economy. Although
Distributism, and economics in general, are not
at the heart of From Christendom, Storck helps
build a case for a return to a more stable, sane,
and sanctified economic order by unveiling how
liberalism itself destabilizes families, erodes
communities, and marginalizes the Church’s
role in society. As Storck’s earlier economic
writings demonstrate, far too many Catholics
concerned with the state of contemporary
politics, willfully ignore what the Church has
taught on such matters as widespread property
ownership, just wages, subsidiarity, and
solidarity. It is impossible to critique liberalism
without critiquing capitalism, the economic ordo
ordained by this pernicious ideology.
For most traditional Catholics, much of what
Storck writes concerning the foundational
importance of the family and the relationship
of the Catholic Church to the temporal order
should already be known. What Storck adds
to this understanding, however, is a deeper
appreciation for the history behind the Church’s
respond to liberalism and the hard battle many
ecclesiastical leaders and laymen fought to keep
liberal ideology at bay. Today, in the wake of the
Second Vatican Council, we can lament that they
were not altogether successful while holding fast
to the belief that only by understanding how the
inheritance of Christendom was set aside in favor
of the dubious promise of Americanism can we
hope to overcome the latter.

The Perils of Economic
Liberalism
Though published a year before Storck’s
24

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January - February 2017

From Christendom, McCall’s To Build the City
of God: Living as Catholics in a Secular Age
(Angelico Press, 2014) points beyond the cesspool
of postmodernity to an authentic Christian
political, social, and economic order. McCall,
an accomplished attorney and professor at
Oklahoma University College of Law, takes for
granted that the world is fire; his main concern
is showing how to extinguish it without ignoring
competing arguments.
After briefly reviewing the doctrine of Christ’s
social kingship, McCall’s book, like Storck’s
starts logically with the family, which is the
foundation of both political and economic
society. What McCall wants to do is paint a clear
picture of just how distorted contemporary
family life has become due to the barrage of
false ideas and images that we are inundated
with daily. Even those who have foresworn
television and limit their Internet access to
edifying material alone cannot escape the routine
broadcasting of dominant cultural assumptions
concerning sexuality, equality between the sexes,
and the independence of children; to build up a
bulwark against such errors is no easy task, but it
must be done.
Where To Build the City of God really shines
is in McCall’s discussion of economic life. Over
the course of several sections, McCall submits
liberal economic ideology to a withering critique
by reminding readers of one inescapable fact:
all economic activity involves human choice.
Contrary to the propaganda spread by the
Catholic-operated Acton Institute and fullthroated Catholic libertarians like Thomas
Woods, the “science” of economics is not about
“hard laws”; nothing is determined in advance
absolutely, not even the so-called “law of supply
and demand.” When supply shrinks, a choice is
made to raise prices; it is not inevitable. And
as for the classic argument that keeping prices
low while supplies are short leads to a waste of
scarce resources (an argument Woods and other
economic liberals are fond to repeat), McCall
highlights that raising prices only favors the
wealthy; it doesn’t mean that those who truly
value the scarce resources the most will acquire
them. Additionally, a wealthy person may be more
inclined to waste resources because he can. For

instance, a man living alone making a million
dollars a year could afford to buy ten EpiPens
even though he only needs one, simply because
he wants to keep one in his numerous cars and
rooms. Meanwhile, a family of six with a father
making $50,000/year will struggle to purchase
just one even though they have a child whose life
could depend on the device. Does the family of
six value the EpiPen any less than the millionaire,
or do they simply lack the means available to the
millionaire?
As the book progresses, McCall offers up some
practical advice for his fellow Catholics. While
he has some rightly harsh words for usurers,
McCall’s treatment of the topic is both charitable
and nuanced. As he clarifies, not all loans—even
loans with interest—are necessarily usurious,
though many are. McCall also clears the air
about bankruptcy brought on by such lending
and other social conditions; although we have an
obligation to pay our debts, there are legitimate
circumstances where bankruptcy is necessary
and the shame associated with the option is
bound up with Protestant economic ideology
rather than authentic Catholic teaching. Equally
powerful is McCall’s discussion of tithing, a
practice promoted by Protestants and even many
Eastern Orthodox, but which has no authentic
basis in the Gospel. It’s not that McCall is calling
on Catholics to not support the Church; that duty
can be found even in the natural law. Rather,
McCall rejects the pernicious idea that the
Church demands a flat 10% “tax” from the faithful
while also discussing how the modern state and
the current liberal economic ordo fleeces people
of their rightful wages before they even have a
chance to give to the Church.

Republican Party, and the closing chapters of
From Christendom focuses on the collapse of
the so-called “New Deal Coalition” which brought
Catholics and Democrats together in the first half
of the 20th Century and the rise of revolutionary
forces in America, starting in the 1960s and
carrying forward to the present day. This
revolution brought with it not only an assault on
the last vestiges of Christendom, but called the
very possibility of truth into question. In place of
learning, disputation, and belief comes ideology,
relativism, and indifferentism.
When read in tandem, Storck’s From
Christendom and McCall’s To Build the City
of God supplies Catholics with the tools to
comprehend the postmodern age while pointing
to the means to overcome it. This overcoming
will not be a merely natural work, however.
Both Storck and McCall never lose sight of
the supernatural even when they are forced to
contend with the mundane. Rather than rely on
earthly wisdom alone, both repair to the timeless
traditions of the Church and the indefectible
elements of her social magisterium to support
their largely unified visions of a social order ruled
once again by Christ the King.

Comprehending the
Postmodern Age
Returning to Storck’s book, it should be noted
that while liberalism remains his primary target,
Storck is cognizant of the fact that socialist
ideas which have also been condemned by the
Church have come to dominate in recent times
as well. That is to say, Storck is not an apologist
for the Democratic Party over-and-against the
25

Unlike his father Pippin and his uncle Carloman,
Charlemagne expanded the reform programme of the
Church. The deepening of the spiritual life was later to
be seen as central to public policy and royal governance.
His reform focused on the strengthening of the Church’s
power structure, improving the skill and moral quality of
the clergy, standardizing liturgical practices, improving
on the basic tenets of the faith and morals, and the
rooting out of paganism. His authority had then extended
over church and state. He could discipline clerics, control
ecclesiastical property, and define orthodox doctrine.
Despite the harsh legislation and sudden change, he had
garnered strong support from the clergy who approved
his desire to deepen the piety and morals of his Christian
subjects.

Faith and Morals

Feasts of Our Lady:

The
Purification
by Fr. Christopher Danel

“On this day the Virgin-Mother brings the Lord
of the Temple into the Temple of the Lord; Joseph
presents to the Lord a Son, who is not his own,
but the Beloved Son of the Lord Himself, and in
whom the Lord is well pleased: Simeon, the just
man, confesses Him for whom he had been so
long waiting; Anna, too, the widow, confesses
Him. The Procession of this solemnity was first
made by these four, which afterwards was to be
made, to the joy of the whole earth, in every place
and by every nation” (St. Bernard, First Sermon
on the Purification).

The Law and the Gospel
Thus forty days after the Nativity of the Savior
at Bethlehem, Our Lady fulfilled the Law of the
28

The Angelus

January - February 2017

Most High in regard to the birth of a son, the
pertinent parts of which are paraphrased as
follows from the twelfth chapter of Leviticus:
“If a woman shall bear a male child, she shall be
unclean seven days. And on the eighth day the
infant shall be circumcised, but she shall remain
three and thirty days unclean [i.e., for a total of
forty days]. And when the days of her purification
are expired, she shall bring to the door of the
tabernacle a lamb of a year old for a holocaust
and a turtledove for sin [or two turtledoves, cf.
Lev 12:8], and shall deliver them to the priest,
who shall offer them before the Lord, and shall
pray for her, and so she shall be cleansed.”
Furthermore, if the son be the firstborn, he is
to be especially dedicated to God, according to
Exodus 13:2, “Sanctify unto me every firstborn
that openeth the womb among the children

of Israel, as well of men as of beasts: for they
are all mine.” Bishop Challoner (+1781) notes,
“Sanctification in this place means that the
firstborn males of the Hebrews should be deputed
to the ministry in the divine worship, and the
firstborn of the beasts to be given for a sacrifice.”
In St. Luke’s Gospel (Chapter 2), we see all of
this come together on that Fortieth Day: “And
after the days of her purification according to the
law of Moses were accomplished, they carried
him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord,
as it is written in the law of the Lord: Every
male opening the womb shall be called holy
to the Lord: and to offer a sacrifice, according
as it is written in the law of the Lord, a pair of

of the other miraculous events and prophecies
which occurred on her purification day.

A Feast of Our Lady
The feast thus commemorates Our Lady’s
going up to the temple. All other events of that
day result from this religious act, such as the
presentation of the Infant Jesus in the temple
on that occasion. Her act thus brings about the
convergence of several figures: Herself and St.
Joseph, Our Lord entering His temple, and Sts.
Simeon and Anna. Because of this encounter,
the Greeks call the feast the Meeting of the Lord

Stainglass window,
Presentation of Our Lord,
Church of St. Leo, Montreal

turtledoves, or two young pigeons.”
How can the All-Pure be purified? With no
issue of blood, no painful birth, how is it that
the Ever-Virgin Mary could be in need of this
ritual? It is clear that in the case of Our Lady,
there is no actual purifying to be done. The
Church’s commemoration of this event called the
Purification is therefore above all a veneration
of her humility and obedience before God, and

(Hypapante), that is, the commemoration of the
meeting of the Divine Infant with the venerable
St. Simeon after the latter’s many years of
faithful vigil in anticipation of that day. It results
in the beautiful poetry of St. Simeon’s Nunc
Dimittis: “Now thou dost dismiss thy servant O
Lord, according to thy word in peace, because
my eyes have seen thy salvation . . .” The Greek
texts place great emphasis on the figure of St.
29

Faith and Morals
Simeon, but the historian Theophilact pointed
out in AD 602 that the feast nevertheless had
a marked Marian character in the East, which
included a penitential litany and procession to
the Constantinopolitan shrine of the Theotokos
in Blachernis.
In the Roman Rite, the feast maintained its
Marian character, since its development was
always closely associated with that of the other
Marian feasts. In the liturgical books, its title
has consistently been the Purification of Mary.
The office antiphons speak of the presentation
of the Infant and of Sts. Simeon and Anna, but
the psalms assigned are those of Our Lady. The
procession in Rome, directed toward Saint Mary
Major, the principal Marian shrine of the City,
had eighteen deacons carry as many standards
of the Blessed Virgin before the pope. In Milan,
the priests placed a large Madonna and Child
called the Idéa (meaning image) on a float for the
procession from a Marian shrine to the Duomo,
and similar customs prevailed in Aquileia and
Germany.

The History of the Feast
The initial evidence of the liturgical
commemoration of the Purification comes
from the Spanish nun Egeria, who wrote of the
practices in the Holy Land during her pilgrimage
there in AD 416. She says that at Jerusalem, it was
celebrated “with the greatest of honor… for on
that day there is a procession in the Shrine of the
Holy Sepulcher, and all process with order and
great joy, just as for Easter – valde cum summo
honore . . . nam eadem die processio est in
Anastase et omnes procedunt et ordine aguntur
omnia cum summa laetitia, ac si per Pascha.”
Therefore it is clear that the feast was already
well-established by the fifth century, as Dom
Guéranger points out. The historical scholar Pope
Benedict XIV (+1758) deduced that the practice
of commemorating the signal events of the
fortieth day after the Nativity dates back to the
apostolic age. The observance of the feast spread
rapidly from Jerusalem to all of the Levant. In
the sixth century, Syrian sources indicate that it
was celebrated throughout all of Palestine and
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was then adopted in the city of Constantinople
by way of imitation, modo aemulatione. It was
introduced there and extended throughout the
empire, wrote Patriarch St. Nicephorus (+829),
by the Emperor Justin in AD 527. Fifteen years
later, as a thanksgiving for the cessation of
a pestilence, the Emperor Justinian gave the
Hypapante even more prominence.

Adoption at Rome
The feast was adopted at Rome by the
seventh century and appears in the Gelasian
Sacramentary from that era. The procession
itself appears to have been introduced around
that time or not long afterward. The Liber
Pontificalis, a papal chronology kept up through
the fifteenth century, states that Pope Sergius I
(AD 687-701) added it to a series of three other
Marian processions: “He ordered that on the
days of the Annunciation of the Lord, on the
Dormition, on the Nativity of the Holy and EverVirgin Mary Mother of God, and on St. Simeon,
which the Greeks call Hypapante, the procession
shall leave from St. Adrian’s and the people shall
process to St. Mary Major,” where the festal Mass
was then celebrated.
While the procession was introduced along
with the feast, Dom Guéranger writes that
uncovering the exact origin of the candles is
“exceedingly difficult.” Some have speculated
that the use of candles for the procession in
Rome was instituted as a way of substituting
the previous processions of the Lupercalia or
Amburvalia, but these processions had already
faded away long before the introduction of
candles for the Purification. Formulae regarding
the candles begin to appear in the late ninth
century, for example in the Sacramentary of
Padua.

The Blessing of Candles
The beautiful practice of blessing candles
and processing with them gives the feast its
other common name: Candlemas (that is, Candle
Mass). The gesture has a symbolic connection

to the prophecy of St. Simeon as he held the
Divine Infant in his arms, calling Him: “A light
of revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of
Thy people Israel.” The same Infant would later
declare of Himself: “I am the light of the world;
he that followeth me, walketh not in darkness,
but shall have the light of life.”
In Rome, older texts describe the candles
being blessed by cardinals in advance of the
procession. There are five prayers of blessing for
the candles. The first two are from at least the
tenth century, and the remaining three from the
eleventh. The five prayers beseech from God the
following: (a) that the candles may be blessed
and sanctified as sacramentals “for the service of
men and for the good of their bodies and souls in
all places, whether on sea or on land”; (b) that we
may be inflamed by divine charity and be made
worthy to enter the “holy Temple” of heaven; (c)
that we may be delivered from the blindness of
sin to clearly see God’s will; (d) that we may be
further enlightened by the Holy Ghost; (e) so
that in the love and reverence of God we may
profess the Faith. The Candlemas candles thus
become special sacramentals, and it is customary
for the faithful to take their candles home and
burn them in times of need, especially during
epidemics, storms, difficult births, and at the
bedside of dying. They are used, for example, on
the following day for the blessing of St. Blaise.
The chant for the distribution of the candles is
taken from the Gospel: the Nunc Dimittis of St.
Simeon.

The Procession
The seventh century Roman ordo describes
the logistics of the procession, which was at once
penitential and at the same time festive. The pope
and clergy would vest at the gathering church of
St. Adrian. The schola would sing the antiphon
Exurge Domine, after which the pope would
ascend to the altar to sing the collect. Then he,
the clergy, and the faithful would process in
bare feet to Saint Mary Major. As the procession
included the litanies with the Kyrie, the Mass
would begin at Saint Mary Major with the Gloria.
This practice for the beginning of the procession

is still the same: at the blessing of the candles,
Exurge Domine is sung, followed by a collect,
and then the procession makes its way and is
concluded then by Holy Mass.
The antiphons for the procession have been
the subject of study by liturgists, as they are
unusual specimens of Greek texts and chants
in the Latin liturgy. The principal processional
antiphon, Adorna thalamum tuum, is as follows:
“Adorn thy bridal-chamber, O Sion, and receive
Christ thy King. Salute Mary, the gate of heaven;
for she beareth the King of glory, who is the new
Light. The Virgin stands, bringing in her hands
her Son, the Begotten before the day-star; whom
Simeon, receiving into his arms, declared to
the people as the Lord of life and death, and the
Savior of the world.” Re-entering the church, the
antiphon Obtulerunt is chanted: “They offered
for Him to the Lord a pair of turtledoves or two
young pigeons, * as it is written in the Law of the
Lord. After the days of Mary’s purification were
accomplished, according to the Law of Moses,
they carried Jesus to Jerusalem, to present Him
to the Lord[.]”

Conclusion
The second of February represents the
confluence of several persons and events at
the same time, namely, the Purification-day
of Our Lady, her Presentation of the Divine
Infant accompanied by St. Joseph, and their
prophecy-laden encounter with Sts. Simeon and
Anna. Our participation in this event is marked
by processing at the church, representing the
temple, bearing blessed candles in honor of Him
who is the Light of the World. We may fittingly
meditate on the liturgical symbolism pointed
out by St. Yves of Chartres. The wax, he writes,
symbolizes the spotless and virginal flesh of both
the Divine Infant and His holy Mother, while the
flame represents Christ who dispels all darkness,
warming us with divine charity and filling us
with the brilliance of His light.

31

According to the Mosaic law a mother
who had given birth to a man-child
was considered unclean for seven days;
moreover she was to remain three
and thirty days “in the blood of her
purification”; for a maid-child the time
which excluded the mother from sanctuary
was even doubled. When the time (forty or
eighty days) was over, the mother was to
“bring to the temple a lamb for a holocaust
and a young pigeon or turtle dove for sin”;
if she was not able to offer a lamb, she was
to take two turtle doves or two pigeons;
the priest prayed for her and so she was
cleansed. (Leviticus 12:2-8)
Stainglass window, Church of St. Leo, Montreal, Canada

Faith and Morals

The
Americanist
Heresy
Extracts of Leo XIII’s Testem Benevolentiæ (January 22, 1899)

This Apostolic Letter, addressed to Cardinal.
Gibbons, was the outcome of the French version
of a book on the founder of the Paulist Fathers,
entitled The Life of Isaac Hecker. Its preface
contained dangerous statements which gave rise
to a violent controversy in France over what was
labeled “Americanism.” It permitted Leo XIII to
correct certain opinions all too prevalent in our
own age, not only in America but in the entire
Western world.
We send you this letter as a testimony of that
devoted affection in your regard, which during
the long course of Our Pontificate, We have never
ceased to profess for you, for your colleagues in the
Episcopate, and for the whole American people,
willingly availing Ourselves of every occasion to
do so. . . . The opportunity also often presented
itself of regarding with admiration that exceptional
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disposition of your nation, so eager for what is
great, and so ready to pursue whatever might be
conducive to social progress and the splendor
of the State. But the object of this letter is not to
repeat the praise so often accorded, but rather to
point out certain things which are to be avoided
and corrected, yet because it is written with that
same apostolic charity which We have always
shown you, and in which We have often addressed
you.

The Principles
The principles on which the new opinions We
have mentioned are based may be reduced to
this: that, in order the more easily to bring over to
Catholic doctrine those who dissent from it, the

Church ought to adapt herself somewhat to our
advanced civilization, and, relaxing her ancient
rigor, show some indulgence to modern popular
theories and methods. Many think that this is to
be understood not only with regard to the rule of
life, but also to the doctrines in which the deposit
of faith is contained. For they contend that it is
opportune, in order to work in a more attractive
way upon the wills of those who are not in accord
with us, to pass over certain heads of doctrines, as
if of lesser moment, or to so soften them that they
may not have the same meaning which the Church
has invariably held.
The rule of life which is laid down for
Catholics is not of such a nature as not to admit
modifications, according to the diversity of time
and place. The Church, indeed, possesses what her
Author has bestowed on her, a kind and merciful
disposition… it has always been accustomed to
so modify the rule of life that, while keeping the
divine right inviolate, it has never disregarded
the manners and customs of the various nations
which it embraces. If required for the salvation of
souls, who will doubt that it is ready to do so at
the present time? But this is not to be determined
by the will of private individuals, who are mostly
deceived by the appearance of right, but ought to
be left to the judgment of the Church.
But in the matter of which we are now speaking,
Beloved Son, the project involves a greater danger
and is more hostile to Catholic doctrine and
discipline, inasmuch as the followers of these
novelties judge that a certain liberty ought to be
introduced into the Church, so that, limiting the
exercise and vigilance of its powers, each one
of the faithful may act more freely in pursuance
of his own natural bent and capacity. They
affirm, namely, that this is called for in order to
imitate that liberty which, though quite recently
introduced, is now the law and the foundation of
almost every civil community. . . . To this we may
add that those who argue in that wise quite set
aside the wisdom and providence of God; who
when He desired in that very solemn decision to
affirm the authority and teaching office of the
Apostolic See, desired it especially in order the
more efficaciously to guard the minds of Catholics
from the dangers of the present times. The license
which is commonly confounded with liberty; the

passion for saying and reviling everything; the
habit of thinking and of expressing everything
in print, have cast such deep shadows on men’s
minds, that there is now greater utility and
necessity for this office of teaching than ever
before, lest men should be drawn away from
conscience and duty.

A Naturalist Spirit
We come now in due course to what are adduced
as consequences from the opinions which We
have touched upon… For, in the first place, all
external guidance is rejected as superfluous, nay
even as somewhat of a disadvantage, for those who
desire to devote themselves to the acquisition of
Christian perfection; for the Holy Ghost, they say,
pours greater and richer gifts into the hearts of the
faithful now than in times past; and by a certain
hidden instinct teaches and moves them with no
one as an intermediary. It is indeed not a little
rash to wish to determine the degree in which God
communicates with men; for that depends solely
on His will; and He Himself is the absolutely free
giver of His own gifts. “The Spirit breatheth where
He will” (Jn. 3:8). “But to every one of us is given
grace according to the measure of the giving of
Christ” (Eph. 4:7). Chrysostom says, “we should be
taught by God through men.”(Hom I in Inscr. altar.
. . . It must also be kept in mind that those who
follow what is more perfect are by the very fact
entering upon a way of life which for most men is
untried and more exposed to error, and therefore
they, more than others, stand in need of a teacher
and a guide. This manner of acting has invariably
obtained in the Church. All, without exception,
who in the course of ages have been remarkable
for science and holiness have taught this doctrine.
Those who reject it, assuredly do so rashly and at
their peril.
It is hard to understand how those who are
imbued with Christian principles can place the
natural ahead of the supernatural virtues, and
attribute to them greater power and fecundity.
Is nature, then, with grace added to it, weaker
than when left to its own strength? and have the
eminently holy men whom the Church reveres
and pays homage to, shown themselves weak
35

Faith and Morals
and incompetent in the natural order, because
they have excelled in Christian virtue? Even if we
admire the sometimes splendid acts of the natural
virtues, how rare is the man who really possesses
the habit of these natural virtues? Who is there
who is not disturbed by passions, sometimes of
a violent nature, for the persevering conquest of
which, just as for the observance of the whole
natural law, man must needs have some divine
help? If we scrutinize more closely the particular
acts We have above referred to, we shall discover
that oftentimes they have more the appearance
than the reality of virtue.
But let us grant that these are real. If we do
not wish to run in vain, if we do not wish to lose
sight of the eternal blessedness to which God in
His goodness has destined us, of what use are
the natural virtues unless the gift and strength of
divine grace be added? Aptly does St. Augustine
say: “Great power, and a rapid pace, but out of the
course” (In Ps. 31:4). For as the nature of man,
because of our common misfortune, fell into vice
and dishonor, yet by the assistance of grace is
lifted up and borne onward with new honor and
strength; so also the virtues which are exercised
not by the unaided powers of nature, but by the
help of the same grace, are made productive of
a supernatural beatitude and become solid and
enduring.

An Anti-Contemplative Spirit
With this opinion about natural virtue, another
is intimately connected, according to which all
Christian virtues are divided as it were into two
classes, passive as they say, and active; and they
add the former were better suited for the past
times, but the latter are more in keeping with the
present. It is plain what is to be thought of such
division of the virtues. There is not and cannot be
a virtue which is really passive… To the men of
all ages, the phrase is to be applied: “Learn of Me
because I am meek, and humble of heart” (Mt. 11:
29), and at all times Christ shows Himself to us as
becoming “obedient unto death (Phil. 3:8),” and in
every age also the word of the Apostle holds: “And
they that are Christ’s have crucified their flesh
with the vices and concupiscences” (Gal. 5:24).
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Would that more would cultivate those virtues
in our days, as did the holy men of bygone times!
Those who by humbleness of spirit, by obedience
and abstinence, were powerful in word and work,
were of the greatest help not only to religion but to
the State and society.
From this species of contempt of the evangelical
virtues, which are wrongly called passive, it
naturally follows that the mind is imbued little by
little with a feeling of disdain for the religious life.
And that this is common to the advocates of these
new opinions we gather from certain expressions
of theirs about the vows which religious orders
pronounce. For, say they, such vows are altogether
out of keeping with the spirit of our age, inasmuch
as they narrow the limits of human liberty; are
better adapted to weak minds than to strong ones;
avail little for Christian perfection and the good of
human society, and rather obstruct and interfere
with it… Those who bind themselves by the vows
of religion are so far from throwing away their
liberty that they enjoy a nobler and fuller one—
that, namely, “by which Christ has set us free” (Jas.
5:16).
What they add to this—namely, that religious
life helps the Church not at all or very little—apart
from being injurious to religious orders, will be
admitted by no one who has read the history
of the Church. Did not your own United States
receive from the members of religious orders
the beginning of its faith and civilization?... Nor
is there any distinction of praise between those
who lead an active life and those who, attracted
by seclusion, give themselves up to prayer and
mortification of the body. How gloriously they have
merited from human society, and do still merit,
they should be aware who are not ignorant of how
“the continual prayer of a just man” (S. Ambr. in
Ps. 11:57), especially when joined to affliction of
the body, avails to propitiate and conciliate the
majesty of God.
If there are any, therefore, who prefer to unite
together in one society without the obligation
of vows, let them do as they desire. That is not
a new institution in the Church, nor is it to be
disapproved. But let them beware of setting such
association above religious orders; nay rather,
since mankind is more prone now than heretofore
to the enjoyment of pleasure, much greater esteem

is to be accorded to those who have left all things
and have followed Christ.
Lastly, not to delay too long, it is also maintained
that the way and the method which Catholics have
followed thus far for recalling those who differ
from us is to be abandoned and another resorted
to. In that matter, it suffices to advert that it is not
prudent, Beloved Son, to neglect what antiquity,
with its long experience, guided as it is by apostolic
teaching, has stamped with its approval… So that
if among the different methods of preaching the
word of God, that sometimes seems preferable by
which those who dissent from us are spoken to, not
in the church but in any private and proper place,
not in disputation but in amicable conference, such
method is indeed not to be reprehended; provided,
however, that those who are devoted to that work
by the authority of the bishop be men who have
first given proof of science and virtue.
Hence, from all that We have hitherto said, it
is clear, Beloved Son, that We cannot approve
the opinions which some comprise under the

head of Americanism. If, indeed, by that name
be designated the characteristic qualities which
reflect honor on the people of America, just as
other nations have what is special to them; or if
it implies the condition of your commonwealths,
or the laws and customs which prevail in them,
there is surely no reason why We should deem that
it ought to be discarded. But if it is to be used not
only to signify, but even to commend the above
doctrines, there can be no doubt but that our
Venerable Brethren the bishops of America would
be the first to repudiate and condemn it, as being
especially unjust to them and to the entire nation
as well. For it raises the suspicion that there are
some among you who conceive of and desire a
church in America different from that which is in
the rest of the world. One in the unity of doctrine
as in the unity of government, such is the Catholic
Church, and, since God has established its centre
and foundation in the Chair of Peter, one which is
rightly called Roman, for where Peter is there is
the Church.

A woman symbolizing Justice stands at door of the building “State.” Soldiers block the steps to members of different
denominations. (Thomas Nast, 1840 – 1902)

37

Spirituality

The Diaries of Monsignor

Joseph
C. Fenton
Some Insights into the Man and His Times

by Fr. Jacob Peters

Few traditional theologians at the Second
Vatican Council more antagonized the majority
of progressivists among the periti (theological
experts) than Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton.
Those familiar with the issues debated at the
Council will easily recognize his name and the
subject with which he is most closely associated:
religious liberty; his intellectual duels fought with
his adversary, Fr. John Courtney Murray, S.J.,
were legendary fare within Catholic academia in
the 1950s.
As more histories of the Council period are
available, one may be more than mildly surprised
that the clerical opponents, in addition to their
scholarly antagonisms, not infrequently harbored
strong personal feelings about each other as well.
Msgr. Fenton has left for posterity a treasure
trove of diaries chronicling more than two dozen
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trips to Rome from the period of 1948 to 1966. In
them we learn much about the man who played
a major role at Vatican II as a member of its
Central Preparatory Commission; and we also
attain insights into how he earned the enmity of
progressive theologians such as two of the titans
of the 20th century: Fr. Henri de Lubac, S.J. and
Father Yves Congar, O.P.
After a particularly heated meeting in Rome
during March of 1962, one graphic clash was
recorded in the diary of Fr. Congar: “After some
time, Fenton is so vile, so foolishly negative, so
aggressive, so entirely out of his senses, that
Msgr. Philips [Gerard Philips, a theologian at
the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium]
stands up and says, with emotion, strongly and
calmly: Under these conditions, it is impossible to
work, and I retire. Because (addressing Fenton)

you accuse everybody of heresy.” Fr. de Lubac’s
diary offers a substantially similar account. Msgr.
Fenton’s recollection of this incident in his diary
is very brief: “At the afternoon meeting, Philips
launched a verbal attack against me, and I replied
in kind.”
While Msgr. Fenton’s six-foot plus, fullsized frame and strong personality probably
contributed toward his proclivity to attract
powerful and outspoken enemies, they weren’t
the major reasons. At the age of 38, 13 years after
his ordination to the priesthood, he became the
editor of what was at the time one of the most
prestigious theological journals in the United
States, the American Ecclesiastical Review.
From 1939 until his retirement in 1963, he
taught fundamental and dogmatic theology at
Catholic University in Washington, D.C. He was

the first secretary of the Catholic Theological
Society of America. Though often portrayed
by the victors at the Council as a theological
lightweight (Congar actually had tried to prevent
his appointment to the Central Preparatory
Commission on the grounds that he had little
following in the United States), his decade-long
debate with Fr. J. C. Murray should have been
sufficient to solidify his theological credentials
and reputation, even among his opponents both
in the United States and Europe.
Such vitriol as exhibited toward Fenton both
before and after the Council should provoke
a curiosity of a different stripe: what was the
personality of the man who so prominently
manned the lonely post of safeguarding Catholic
theological tradition as it was assaulted from
after the Second World War until his sudden
39

Spirituality
death at the age of 63? Who was this man behind
the uncompromising orthodoxy that was being
abandoned by so many during the height of his
priestly life?

A New England Yankee
in the Papal Court
In no small degree, resentment toward Fr.
Fenton was more than likely nurtured by the
fact that he was a Roman “insider” for most of
his life as a Catholic educator and theologian.
This would have rankled the halls of Catholic
academia due to the growing rebellion in the U.S.
and Europe against what was considered to be
heavy-handed Roman control and discipline over
theological matters. His journals begin with his
first airplane voyage to the Eternal City in May
of 1948. He is picked up at the airport outside
Rome by the driver of the then Msgr. Domenico
Tardini, who headed the foreign desk at the
powerful Secretariat of State. During this stay in
Rome, he lists various other powerful personages
with whom he had contact and conversations:
Cardinal Giovanni Mercati (Archivist of the
Vatican Secret Archives), Cardinal Giuseppe
Pizzardo (Prefect of the Congregation for
Seminaries and Universities); Msgr. (at the time)
Alfredo Ottaviani, an already influential figure
at the Holy Office, Msgr. Giovanni Montini,
the head of the Ecclesiastical Affairs desk at
the Secretariat of State who, together with
Msgr. Tardini, was among Pius XII’s closest
collaborators.
Fr. Fenton’s diaries indicate, however, that his
relationships with some of the most prominent
figures in the Holy See were far from static. For
instance, while his first several trips to Rome
between 1948 and the early 1950s are dotted
with references to dinners with Tardini, by the
summer of 1958 (shortly before the death of
Pius XII and the elevation of Msgr Tardini to be
Secretary of State by John XXIII), Fenton writes
that “Tardini is one of the world’s prize bores,”
and criticizes him for “trying to milk Americans. I
want as little as possible to do with him.”
Near the end of the Council (summer of 1965),
Fr. Fenton remarks that, when he first arrived in
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Rome during that particular trip, he was invited
to dine with Cardinal Ottaviani at his home.
Enigmatically and in a cheerless yet distant tone
he remarks, “O has lost a lot of his energy. I think
he has wasted a lot of his life and has canceled
a great deal of his value to the Church by reason
of his attachment to a political group.” (This may
have referred to Ottaviani’s staunch opposition
to any progressive Italian political reforms or
compromise with the Communism Party.)

Roman Realpolitik
One of the obvious curiosities regarding
all of Fr. Fenton’s high Vatican contacts is
whether there appear any indications of “career
aspirations” in his diaries. Many priests who
had such high ecclesiastics as friends might
have been expected to offer evidence that they
were anticipating a promotion (such as to the
episcopacy). Fr. Fenton’s diaries offer very few
such hints, and these insinuations mostly occur
within a very short span of time during his visit
to Rome in the summer of 1956. The first was an
indirect allusion; he refers to being at dinner (it
would appear to be at the residence of Cardinal
Ottaviani) and having someone suggest that “I
should bring the C [Cardinal] to the USA after I
am in a position to do so. There is of course only
one such position.”
A few days later, however, he indicates a
sober realism concerning his prospects for
advancement: “Personally I don’t think a
promotion is going to come...under the present
circumstances. It seems that [he refers to
someone whom he considers able to make such
decisions] . . . is a bit out of step at the moment,
and the Murrayites [the devotees of Fr. J.C.
Murray] have him firmly under control.”
This assessment is further evidenced by a
diary entry during this same trip.
“I must say that I’m somewhat shocked at
the attitude of Coffey [Fr. Edward Coffey, S.J.
who directed the future Cardinal John Wright’s
doctoral dissertation]. . . . I have known for quite
some time that a very considerable number of
Catholic teachers and men who are teachers of
theology ...were off the beam. From what Coffey
said, they have strayed farther from Catholic

truth than what I had believed. If the nonsense
these people were saying (again, according to
Coffey) is generally accepted in the Church, we
are certainly on the way to a terrible apostasy.
It’s obvious that men like Coffey are in control
of the Pope at the present time. Yet I am proud
and privileged to be one of those called by the
Lord to combat the errors propounded by these
individuals. It seems clear that I shall never
obtain any promotion or real recognition. . . . Yet
is at a time like this that a man can realize that he
is working for our Crucified Divine Lord and not
for any of his instruments in the Church. It has
served to strengthen my faith.”
Finally, at the very end of that same summer
visit in 1956, he reports that he stopped by the
offices of Cardinal Pizzardo to say goodbye.
Fenton, with a tone of delight, relates that as he
arose to leave, “he [the Cardinal] took off his red
zucchetta and placed it on me, saying that this
was a prophesy.”

Things Aren’t Always
What They Seem
Another factor which probably impeded his
rise in the ecclesiastical ranks relates to what a
friend with contacts in the Roman Curia had told
him in the summer of 1956: Fenton had enemies.
Though it was certainly true that his theological
views drew most of the hostility, his tendency
toward frank expression (even concerning
non-combative matters) no doubt contributed
to the personal animosity of his opponents.
For instance, in the mid-1950s during a Roman
visit, Fr. Fenton pens in his journal that he had
dinner with Cardinal Ottaviani. Various other
personages were in attendance as well, among
them Bishop Fulton J. Sheen (who was the guest
of honor). Fenton records his impression of the
man: “Sheen is the original Narcissus. He talked
loudly and enthusiastically and at length about
himself.”
In another entry, not long after this, at a much
more informal dinner, he remarked that the
name of the powerful German nun close to Pius
XII came up during the conversation. Fr. Fenton
relates that, “I am afraid I was unable to hide my

disgust at [Sister] Pasqualina and all her doings.”
Yet Fr. Fenton was just as apt to display
charity and humorous, sardonic observations.
After hearing the ultra progressive Cardinal
Suenens address a Council session, he
commented, “Suenens gave a fine speech in
which he complained of the fact that 90% of the
canonized saints are Italian, French or Spanish. I
have always said that this is a scandal.” Another
time while on a visit to the Angelicum University
he crossed paths with one of his major Conciliar
nemeses (of previous mention), Fr. Yves Congar.
Fr. Fenton observed, “Met Congar. He is 57. He is
or tries to be quite pleasant.”
Fr. Fenton’s diaries indicate that, besides
his dining with high ranking churchmen, he
enjoyed regular priestly camaraderie, and some
of the names of his dinner companions in Rome
over the years would surprise not a few. They
included Fr. Hugh O’Flaherty (the Irish priest
who was to be lionized in the movie, The Scarlet
and the Black), as well as a number of clerics
among whom would become some of the most
notoriously progressive theologians in the postconciliar Church: Fathers Richard McCormack
(moral theology), Frederick McManus (canon
law), George Higgins (labor activist), and many
more.

Of Premises and Prayer
His eclecticism regarding culinary compatriots
did not extend to his intellectual disposition. In
various places throughout his diaries he displays
an unwavering direct and uncompromising
perspective on both the world and the Church. In
his 1948 journal regarding the former, he offered
convictions as crisp as they were sober:
“People imagine that the human race is as it
were benevolent/neutral with reference to God—
ready to be convinced one way or the other—
false—the race as such is hostile to God and His
Church. . . . Objectively: hostility to the Church is
hostility to God.”
He presupposed that the Church was
inimitably destined to cross swords with evil,
requiring militant opposition:
“[S]ome people would make the Church
41

Spirituality
merely a factor; albeit perhaps the main factor in
a worldwide fight against an evil like communism
or for social and economic betterment. This is
a complete misconception of the Church. The
Church alone is the Kingdom of God on earth.
God’s fight is its fight.”
There are passages in his diary (even as
early as 1948, 11 years before the summoning of
Vatican II) that eerily anticipate future themes of
theological controversy such as false ecumenism.
“Some hate to think of the Church standing
alone. They want not specifically Catholic
principles, but principles accepted by all P J
+ C of good will. [Note: believed to indicate
Protestant, Jews, and Christians of good will.]
The doctrine on the Church and the world
shows there can be no cooperation in religion.”
In 1951 he contemplated writing a book on the
Church, and among his notes is found a list of
evils that must be avoided in its exposition:
1. Using the Church as primarily a natural entity
or merely a natural entity
2. Theological minimizing
3. Historical minimizing
4. Cutting away of Tradition
Though a staunch ultramontane, Fr. Fenton’s
approach to Roman policies was neither reflexive
nor lacking in prudence and practicality.
Sometime during May of 1954, he met with a
French scholar who was already sounding an
alarm regarding the resuscitation of modernism
that he sensed was advancing throughout the
Church. His name was Father Raymond Dulac,
who was to become a professor in the early
years of the SSPX seminary at Ecône. He and
Fr. Fenton were to develop and share a fond
friendship. But at this meeting (Fr. Fenton’s
diary records it lasted three hours) the subject
of the Sodalitium Pianum was brought up and
discussed. This was a group of theologians who,
during the pontificate of Pope Pius X, formed
this organization to be an unofficial counterintelligence agency whose purpose was to collect
from around the world reports on those who
were suspected of propounding the heresy of
modernism. It was quite controversial at the time.
Evidently, Cardinal Merry del Val intervened and
42

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January - February 2017

prevented it from attaining a canonical status.
Fr. Fenton writes with appealing candor and
level-headedness:
“There was talk of an exchange of information,
something which I thought might be on the line
of the old Sodalitium Pianum. I did not favor
such a move, not because I had any objection
against it in principle; but only because, under the
circumstances, I could see no way in which this
procedure would be effective.”
Fr. Fenton, throughout his diaries, relays
evidence of a very traditional and simple Catholic
spiritual life. In many daily journal entries, he
begins by mentioning where and at what time
he had offered Mass that morning; he makes a
passing reference to a missing alarm clock and
that he had asked the Holy Souls to awaken him
at the proper time in the morning; he remarks
about visiting St. Peter’s and, “I knelt at the
confessional.” He mentions being with a priest,
and matter-of-factly states, “We said our beads
together.”
The diaries of Fr. Fenton offer a delightful
anecdotal history of the times and present him as
an autobiographical raconteur. They are written
in a style that is neither self-conscious nor
pretentious. If one reads through them several
times, there is an air of wistful melancholy as
he increasingly perceives that modernism was
emerging victorious throughout the theological
landscape of the late 1950s and 1960s, despite
the best efforts of him and other priest scholars.
Intellectual integrity was at the heart of his selfidentity, nowhere better reflected than in a letter
he penned in 1950 (as a ghost-writer for Cardinal
Pizzardo’s Congregation) to Dwight Eisenhower
while he was President of Columbia University in
New York City. One pithy sentence summarizes
the effort of Father Fenton’s life as a priest and
as a man: “The world today needs to be reminded
that freedom to teach the truth is an inherent
right.”
As Fr. Fenton might say today while
summoning his best French intonation: plus ca
change, plus c’est la meme choses.

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,

–– A Call for Today’s Crusade, by Fr. Gerard Beck
–– The Queenship of Our Lady, by Fr. Albert

by Fr. Juan-Carlos Iscara
–– The Rosary and the Battle of Lepanto, by Andrew J.

–– Archbishop Lefebvre: A Life for Christ the King, by
Bishop Tissier de Mallerais

Clarendon
–– The Relationship of Church and State, by Brian McCall
–– Quas Primas—Pius XI on Christ the King, by Fr. Daniel

–– Catholic Action: Whose Job is it? by Bishop Tissier de
Mallerais
–– Conclusion and Farewell, by Fr. Arnaud Rostand

Themann
–– 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.

Spirituality

Go Steady,
Christian
Soul!
by Fr. Dominique Bourmaud, SSPX

Many readers have meditated on the passage
from the Gospel of St. John, Chapter 14: “My Father
will give you the Paraclete, so that he may be in
you eternally. You will know Him, because He
will dwell within you. We shall come to him, and
make Our abode in him.” This revelation of Christ’s
who, along with the other divine Persons, takes
possession of the soul, resonates within us. Indeed,
the spiritual life consists in the union of the soul
with God as close and perfect as can be. But we
may feel intimidated by an ideal which seems so
far out of reach. Are we are so often prey to sudden
changes of mind and mood? Is there not also
something amiss to speak of a state of rest when
Christian authors speak of struggle and progress?
So, what are we to make of this “dwelling,” of this
presence of the Paraclete who may “be in you
eternally”?
44

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Meandering Through Life
Christian life, according to these words of Our
Lord, is not found in a constant movement from
good to evil and from evil to good. It is something
stable and permanent. He who has nothing firm,
whose life is a perpetual return from sin to
penance and from penance to sin, has good reason
to fear that virtue has never taken root. This
hesitant Christian, who serves two masters, whose
God is all too often his belly, who falls, regrets,
and falls again, is best described in the prayer of
St. Augustine:
“Under Thy lash our inconstancy is visited, but
our sinfulness is not changed. Our suffering soul
is tormented, but our neck is not bent. Our life
groans under sorrow, yet mends not in deed.
If Thou spare us, we correct not our ways; if

Thou punish we cannot endure it.
In time of correction we confess our wrongdoing; after Thy visitation we forget we have wept.
If Thou stretchest forth Thy hand we promise
amendment; if Thou withholdest the sword we
keep not our promise.
If Thou strikest we cry out for mercy: if Thou
sparest we again provoke Thee to strike.
Here we are before Thee, O Lord, shameless
criminals: we know that unless Thou pardon we
shall deservedly perish.
Grant then, almighty Father, without our
deserving it, the pardon we ask for; Thou who
madest out of nothing those who ask Thee.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
St. Augustine, whose early years illustrate the
inner struggle between grace and sin, reveals in
this poignant prayer the ups and downs of the soul
not yet won over to God. Has not this been the lot
of many a Christian soul striving to shed the old
skin? Once God’s grace has taken hold of a soul,
the struggle is far from over. If one could never
lose God’s grace anymore, then, Christ would have
instituted the special sacrament of penance in vain!
There can still be some falls after sin, but there
have also their ready-made remedy. Indeed, Jesus
Christ placed no limit to His power of the keys:
“All that you shall bind will be bound; all that you
shall loose will be loosed.” He could bind and loose
even the abuse of penance itself! We do not mean
that the transition from grace to sin and from sin
to grace is not frequent at times. Do we not have
scriptural examples of this? St. Peter was just
when Jesus told him along with the others, “You
are pure.” And, yet soon afterwards, he denied his
Master. He was certainly converted back when he
shed bitter tears after the gaze of the Lord fell upon
him. And even St. Thomas the Apostle fell into
incredulity after Christ’s Resurrection before he
was won over by His appearance to the Apostolic
College.
It seems as if God allows frequent falls when He
wishes to show a soul its own weakness. Despite
its frequent recurrence in real life, it should be
clear that this troubled stage, however critical to
one’s future life, is not the normal state of the soul.
There is no lasting virtue in these meanderings.
Yet, what is the purpose of these terrible lessons

if not to confirm the soul in humility, diffidence
toward itself, and trust in God? The virtuous
state is the end of these trials and one must strive
to reach that state of firmness and consistency.
Christian soul, you have learned your flaws by your
faults. Never mind your faults; move forward and
learn from your mistakes. Peter was feeble for a
short while only to be led through it to a long and
lasting perseverance. After the tempest came, the
calm and peace of a life won over to Christ.

Contemplation and Action
Now, to speak of perfection as a calm and
peaceful possession of God raises another
objection. Doesn’t something seem amiss here
when real life demands so much struggle and
constant progress? In which does Christian
perfection consist, in rest or in work? This
dilemma is best presented under the pen of Fr.
Faber (Growth in Holiness). While chasing after
the main culprit which paralyzes souls on the
way to perfection, Faber is pointing the finger at
feverish activism. This activism, he says, “vitiates
all it touches, and weakens what is most divine
in all our spiritual exercises. Our duties are all
disorderly, untidy and ill-tempered, because they
rush pell-mell from morning till night, trading on
each other’s heels, and turning round to reproach
each other.”
So, are we not to envision spirituality as
the diametrical opposite of modern life? Is not
perfection to be found in the archetype of those
“whose day is roomy and large, quiet and oldfashioned, everything in its place, and all things
clean, who have few spiritual exercises and do
them slowly and punctiliously?” It may appear
so at first sight. Yet, this pacing up and down on
a comfortable terrace as monks are wont to do
seems to rest on a dead level in piety rather than an
authentic Christian life. And, if we recall the great
spiritual writers, they never portray the spiritual
life as something fairly static, resting happily on a
spiritual plateau, but rather as a steady and painful
ascent to God’s heights.
On this topic, it is interesting that St. Thomas
Aquinas, when comparing the active and
contemplative states of life, argues according to
45

Early Christian art usually represents St. John with an eagle, symbolizing the heights to
which he rises in the first chapter of his Gospel. The chalice as symbolic of St. John, which,
according to some authorities, was not adopted until the thirteenth century. It is sometimes
interpreted with reference to the Last Supper or connected with the legend according to which
St. John was handed a cup of poisoned wine, from which, at his blessing, the poison rose in the
shape of a serpent. Perhaps the most natural explanation is to be found in the words of Christ
to John and James: “My chalice indeed you shall drink” (Matthew 20:23).
Statue of St. John the Apostle, Cathedral of Den Bosch, Netherlands

tradition that, unlike Martha, who represents the
active life, “Mary has chosen the best part, which
will not be taken away from her.” Yet, and this
might come as a surprise, the same St. Thomas
adds that the perfect state of life is that which
best imitates Our Lord, who led a mixed life of
contemplation and action. Besides His apostolic
duties during the day, Christ was seen by his
friends praying often by night.
We all know that some of the greatest
contemplatives were also the most apostolic in
their endeavors. St. John of the Cross preached
throughout the Iberian Peninsula, spreading God’s
Word and the new Carmelite rule. And so was St.
Teresa of Avila, arguably the greatest mystic of
all times, who founded the Discalced Carmelite
Order, restoring it to a primitive contemplative
rule. She admitted that while going through the
whole country to make her foundations, she was
not as free from imperfections as when in the
convents. But, no matter! She understood that
Our Lord was more pleased by her travels and her
foundations than if she had remained a recluse in
St. Joseph’s Monastery at Avila. Closer to our own
time, Dom Chautard was a very active Trappist
monk and, soon, felt the lightheartedness of
superficiality creeping up in his busy schedule
as monastery procurator. That is when he met a
staunch spiritual director who ordered him to pray
twice as much precisely because he was twice
as busy with mundane activities. His valuable
experience won for us the now classic book The
Soul of the Apostolate, in which he teaches us that
priority is to be given to prayer over success, to
contemplation over action.

The Ideal State of the Soul
It is certain that St. John, when it comes to
the spiritual life, is at the extreme opposite of
a St. Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, whose
ardent nature coupled with a powerful grace of
conversion, could not stay put long in one place.
By contrast, St. John is the man of peace, of
seclusion, and of rich prayer life. Did he not have
the care of the Mother of God whose conversation
must have certainly fed his contemplation? This
Marian intimacy and the insights of the beloved

Apostle who rested in Christ’s bosom, won for us
his lofty gospel prologue as well as some grandiose
apocalyptic visions.
It is commonplace to say that the mood of
the soul is reflected also in the style and the
vocabulary of the sacred writers. St. Paul, for
one, speaks much about wrestling, races, and
conquering the prize, and that Christ’s charity
urges us on. His style, nervous and impassioned,
evokes perfectly the hiccups of his tortuous and
troubled apostolic life. By contrast, St. John’s
vocabulary reflects his sedate mood and peaceful
surrounding. The verb manete—remain, dwell—
comes frequently under his pen. We hear the
echoes of the permanent—one would say almost
eternal—state of soul, of God’s dwelling and
making His abode within us, all terms which
denote the static, rather than the dynamic, element
of the spiritual world.
Manete seems also the adequate term to
describe the state of soul proper to the postPentecostal churchmen. There is little doubt that,
when Our Bessed Lord pronounced these words
addressed to his chosen apostles, he clearly meant
that they would be established in God’s presence
and under His protection. That is the idea of the
Psalmist too when he says that “The Lord is my
fortress and my rock… my firmament and my
refuge.” Pentecost for them was a real baptism of
fire. It granted them a fullness of the Holy Ghost
and insights into their mission of teachers and
leaders of the flock. They were literally established
in God , in the twelve pillars of His Church. They
were grounded in God’s essence, knowledge
and power. His strength was theirs to hold and
to use. His infinite knowledge and doctrine was
their steady shield against future heresies. His
ardent Trinitarian love was shared by them so as
to render them oblivious to the worldly assaults.
This, I think, is what is meant when we say that the
apostles were confirmed in grace after Pentecost.
“He is not far away from us; for in Him and
through Him we live, we move and we are.” God
is more intimate to us than we are to ourselves.
And this presence, this intimacy and communion,
is the foundation for our stability. We hope with
firm hope that He will not desert us unless we first
desert him. We know that, anchored in Christ, we
are unassailable.
47

Christian Culture

Politics and
Cultural
Americanism:
Buy Their Fruits?

by Dr. Andrew Childs

As the present volume considers the issues of politics and Americanism,
I begin with a definition of terms. The dictionary defines “election” as “the
selection of a person or persons from among candidates for a position,
especially political office.” We find “fatigue” rendered as “extreme tiredness
after exertion,” and “weakness in materials, especially metal, caused by
repeated variations of stress.” All who endured the catastrophic spectacle of
the American presidential election process of 2016—a rhetorical gladiatorial
combat of unprecedented gruesomeness—might reasonably conclude that
the realm into which we enter can in fact admit no hope, Dantean allusion
intended. But as scholarship demands objectivity and precision, as our Faith
demands hope, and given the present charge to consider not only politics
but the American condition, we can define ‘election fatigue’ as follows: “The
state of mental weakness resulting from repeated stressful exposure to
candidates of questionable virtue for a formerly recognizable and venerable
political office” (see: debasement of the political process, philosophical
chickens coming home to roost).
In the immediate American political past, we have been compelled to
watch a horrible accident: two reckless trains colliding head-on—carrying
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1

Catholic Encyclopedia,
“Civil Allegiance”

venom, bile, ignorance, and incivility—running over the fair damsels Truth,
Goodness, and Charity tied to the tracks of a manifestly political and
philosophical destiny. Recovery from trauma this profound can only come
about through persistent recourse to prayer, bourbon, and Beethoven’s
slow movements. That said, I leave the more specifically theological and
philosophical considerations of politics and Americanism to others in these
pages. I will focus rather on how Catholic principles of civic duty can apply
to our American cultural heritage, certain political aspects of music, and the
existence of recognizable American contributions to musical history, both
bad and good.

Civil Allegiance
As nature and religion prescribe to children dutiful conduct towards the
parents who brought them into the world, so nature and religion impose
on citizens certain obligations towards their country and its rulers. These
obligations may be reduced to those of patriotism and obedience. Patriotism
requires that the citizen should have a reasonable esteem and love for his
country…[which] will lead the citizen to show honor and respect to its rulers.
They represent the State, and are entrusted by God with power to rule it
for the common good. The citizen’s chief duty is to obey the just laws of his
country.1
But how does this relate to culture? Does civil allegiance in fact oblige
loyalty to the artistic traditions of one’s homeland? To the extent that such
loyalty remains licit, I believe it does. Children should learn to love the
genuinely good music of their homeland; folk music provides, in fact, an
essential tool for the formation not only of the musically literate child, but
also the developing citizen.
All of this assumes, however, the existence of a recognizable tradition,
and one of sufficient substance to inspire love and fidelity. This allegiance
does not, however, oblige us to embrace as culturally valid any music
employed for overtly manipulative means, or far worse, to compromise faith
or morals in the attempt to justify modes of artistic expression based only
on their distinctly American origin (“my music, right or wrong…”). A bad
philosophical tree can hardly yield good cultural fruit, the highly selective
harvest and ingestion of which requires not only prudence, but caution:
rotten apples bite back.

Music and Politics
The use of music to serve political or ideological ends spans all of
history, and includes examples from every genre. In the cultivated
realm, these include Mozart’s velvet operatic glove covering the iron
fist of Beaumarchais’s social engineering in The Marriage of Figaro;
Shostakovich’s forced labor in service of the Soviet propaganda machine;
Hitler’s conscription Bruckner and Richard Strauss, whose music he thought
provided his movement a sufficiently imperial soundtrack.
49

Christian Culture
2

No less authority on
Godlessness than Martin
Luther advises, “He who
loves not wine, women, and
song, remains a fool his
whole life long.”

3

Stuart Feder, The Life of
Charles Ives.

4

Emerson, “The American
Scholar”

5

The New Lexicon Webster’s
Dictionary, 1990. This
definition no longer exists;
Webster’s had it “sanitized.”

Vernacular music, whether traditional folk music or more contemporary
popular forms, lends itself particularly well to politicization. Thousands of
songs defiantly protest (positively) real injustice, or (negatively) perceived
encroachment on personal license. Without the bulwark of Catholic
morality—and given the predictable downward pull of fallen nature on the
creative impulse—the devolution of cultural output toward licentiousness
comes as no surprise. With ultimate ends removed as potential sources
of inspiration—existential absolutes Truth, Goodness and Beauty, to say
nothing of the contemplation and praise of God—what remains follows a
predictable course.2
American culture stood at an ideological intersection of tradition and
progress at the end of the 19th century. “Unlike commerce and industry,
national taste and accomplishment in music were more aspiration than
fact.”3 For composers, this aspiration manifested itself in derivation.
“We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe,” Ralph Waldo
Emerson wrote to inspire the American mind to original greatness rather
than ‘hollow’ imitation.4 But since most serious American music depended
upon European models, what would be left to inspire an American composer
if he ignored the “courtly muses,” the only traditionally known sources of
artistic inspiration? In true democratic fashion, traditional and progressive
forces filled the vacuum created by the confusion: a battle raged between the
forces of cultivated and vernacular music for the ears of America, and the
old-style ramparts of fugues and counterpoint began to crumble under the
pressure exerted by ragtime and minstrelsy—and worse would come.

The Seduction of Rock n’ Roll
As recently as 1990, Webster’s dictionary defined “Rock n’ Roll” as: “A style
of popular music of Afro-American origin, characterized by an insistent,
heavily accented syncopated rhythm and an obsessive repetition of short
musical phrases, tending to build up tension in an audience and induce a
state of group frenzy when played very loud.”5 Not a distinct form or school,
Rock includes foundational elements of multiple vernacular trends, all of
them technically fundamental, and with predominantly southern and urban
black roots such as blues, jazz, and gospel. By the late 1940’s, country music,
itself an Americanized form of folk music incorporating pre-colonial and
pioneer elements, fused with the already heterogeneous amalgam, bridging
crucial racial and commercial divides.
More important than the coalescence of vernacular forms, however, a
recognizable cultural ethos emerged, one based on purposefully obscured
conceptions of racial identity, moral norms (especially sexual), and
sociological hierarchy, most notably regarding traditional generational
relationships. Championed by savvy producers and preternaturally
charismatic performers—not to mention emerging technology and mass
distribution mechanisms of radio and television—a highly sensually charged
youth-focused medium emerged, one with universal appeal.
From the mid-20th-century to the present day, the primary cultural
American export has been “junk,” musical, stylistic, and culinary. To those
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6

The paradox of American
religiosity is the principle
of absolute pluralism:
that which makes it
most uniquely American,
also makes it distinctly
non-religious.

7

A recording I might suggest:
Songs of Charles Ives,
Centaur records #2796

with palates unsullied enough to reject Drive-Thru fare as repugnant I
say, chapeau! For most of us, however, it remains a nearly irresistible
combination of sugar, fat, and salt designed to titillate the taste buds, and
something we must resist by an act of the will. With its sweet melodies,
voluptuous harmonies, and savory rhythms, popular music—a ubiquitous
reality—appeals no less to our fallen senses. For those who deny its
potential to infect I say, beware! Children, young and old, yearn to partake.
Popular culture draws its adherents in from both ends of the chronological
spectrum—hyper-sophisticating the young, infantilizing the old—keeping all
in a suspended state of voracious immaturity. The appetite only grows with
ever-increasing ease of access.

America’s Musical Heritage
Notwithstanding the obvious negative American impact on cultural
history, positive contributions exist as well. For some time after the founding
of the republic, natural goodness and morality remained driving forces.
America’s quasi-religious founding principles pervaded society, imposing a
national moral identity and relentless work ethic.6 An avoidance of doctrine
as a dynamic element of religiosity reflected the mood of the age: American
Protestantism underwent foundational changes as the result of the dialectic
with humanist philosophies, becoming more a social think-tank than an
organized religion, recognizable as such primarily by what remained of
religious ceremony, especially music. Original American contributions along
these lines include the genuinely effective hymnody in the mode of Charles
Wesley, and even the striking if peculiar Quaker Shape-note tradition.
Emerson’s condemnation of the “European courtly muses” rings hollow,
and indicates a philosophical rather than artistic prejudice. To their credit
and our national pride, the best American composers chose to develop their
talents using traditional models and techniques, taught by Horatio Parker
and Antonín Dvořák in this country, Nadia Boulanger in Paris, and the best
of the Old School Viennese. Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, and Samuel Barber
rightly deserve a place among history’s great composers; though decidedly
more populist both in approach and appeal, George Gershwin, Scott Joplin,
Leonard Bernstein, and even modern film composers such as John Williams
have made legitimate contributions to music.
Charles Ives (1884-1954), perhaps the most polarizing of the American
greats, employed highly experimental procedures at times. He composed
in isolation, and though properly trained, he never earned his living writing
music (only in America could the defining composer be an undeniable
success not as a composer but an insurance executive). Though he never
intended that a good deal of his music leave the ‘laboratory,’ he created works
of often startling beauty, and lasting importance (the Third Symphony
won a Pulitzer prize in 1946): with due respect to Stephen Foster, he defined
American art song.7
Aaron Copland (1900-1990) might best represent not only the “American
Sound,” but the American approach to bridging the gap between cultivated
art traditions, and an increasingly vernacular society. Though he studied
51

Christian Culture
8

American Historical
Documents, 239.

with Boulanger and at times employed modernist techniques, he created
works both of immediate accessibility and lasting value by his willingness to
simplify his style for the sake of broader audience appeal. His ballet scores
Rodeo and Appalachian Spring are justifiably well-known and loved; his
stirring Fanfare for the Common Man is quintessentially American.
A prodigiously talented composer, pianist, and singer, Samuel Barber
(1910-1981) wrote successfully in every genre, winning the Pulitzer Prize
twice. He wrote in an unapologetically traditional—though but by no means
anachronistic—mode. Perhaps America’s supreme lyrical composer, he
portrayed a depth of harmonic melancholy matched by few others in history:
his Adagio for Strings may be the ultimate expression of pathos in all of
music.

Conclusion
As Catholic Americans, we must strive to retain the best of Christian
culture, and to restore it to the greatest extent possible. We fight an
uphill battle as an accident of birth, but one we cannot fail to engage.
The American mind intuitively grasps the European humanist thinkers; it
also understands paradox. George Washington—aware of the instability
inherent in a centralized government established by a revolution fought
against the concept of centralized government—wrote in his Farewell
Address, “The very idea of the power and the right of the People to establish
Government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established
Government.”8
Unchecked individual liberty leads to anarchy—personal, artistic, and
political. Avoiding—or at least learning from—metaphysical train wrecks
and maintaining our cultural sanity unfortunately requires the rejection of
most of our country’s contributions to art and thought. Rather than see this
a cause for despair, however, we must remain eternally grateful for the clear
indication that we have an obligation of higher citizenship: God’s call for our
sanctification, and Christendom, our proper cultural birthright.
Dr. Andrew Childs lives in St. Marys, Kansas, with his wife and four children. He serves
currently as Associate Dean and Humanities Chair at St. Mary’s College, Head of the
Department of Music at St. Mary’s Academy, and as an assistant to the Director of Education
for the US District of the SSPX. He has taught at Yale University, the University of California at
Irvine, Connecticut College, and Missouri State University.

52

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January - February 2017

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.”

Visit www.angeluspress.org — 1-800-966-7337
Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music.

The Basilica of the Holy Blood is a Roman Catholic
minor basilica in Bruges, Belgium. Originally built
in the 12th century as the chapel of the residence
of the Count of Flanders, the church houses a
venerated relic of the Holy Blood allegedly collected
by Joseph of Arimathea and brought from the Holy
Land by Thierry of Alsace, Count of Flanders.
The large wall-painting behind the high altar was
realized in 1905. In the upper part, the Mystery of
the Cross depicts Christ shedding His Blood, with,
in the background, the towns of Bethlehem, where
Christ was born, and Jerusalem, where He died. The
lower part depicts the transport of the relic from
Jerusalem to Bruges: on the left, Thierry of Alsace
receives the relic from Baldwin III of Jerusalem,
King of Jerusalem; on the right, kneeling beside
Countess Sibylla of Anjou, he hands over the relic to
the chaplain.

Christian Culture

Truth,
Words,
and Duty
by Patrick Murtha

Living in a Post-Truth Era
For all the brave orations about the liberty to
have and hold any thought or to speak, on whim
or with wisdom, any word; for all the proud
and sometimes cowardly boasting about being
in a land where freedom of speech reigns free
and supreme; for all the supposed despising
of orthodoxy and of that much maligned
word called “truth”: at the end of all these,
modern man, like ancient man and medieval
man, actually loathes the lie. In principle he
pronounces that the lie has its place in society,
perhaps as a comfort or a convenience or to
spur or to solve a conflict. And so, he speaks
shamelessly like Mr. Shaw’s Grand Duchess,
saying “All great truths begin as blasphemies,”
when the truth of the matter is far simpler and
less seemingly paradoxical: all great truths begin
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as reality. Or he speaks with judicial decision,
as did Justice Breyer in United States v. Alvarez
(2012): “False factual statements can serve useful
human objectives,” when the truth of the lie is
this: the social value of a deceit is no better than
the virtue or the benefit of a disease. In practice,
however, he quietly believes that the lie can have
no more part in a healthy society than poison
can play in a healthy diet. And so, he disputes the
utility of “alternative truths” and “post-truths”
and “false facts.” This reality does not appear
so evident when the press, the politician, the
professor seem so seeped in the academic or
popular fads, which turn out to be nothing more
newfangled and often flawed trends disguised
as truths, novel or ancient errors robed like
erudition; when so much that is lectured and
learned as true is little more than an unintended

yet unreasonable misrepresentation at best
or a deliberate and definite deceit at worst.
Nevertheless, what is said about modern man
actually admiring and even loving, like a secret
and even sincere love, the idea of orthodoxy, may
be realized as true in the Oxford Dictionary’s
choice for the “word of the year.” There were so
many new-crafted words they could have chosen,
but they rightly chose, perhaps for the wrong
reasons, “post-truth.” The word itself means
that mere emotions or individual gut-feelings
hold more sway over public discourse than do
demonstrable facts or reason; and it is often used,
rightly or wrongly, to style the state of affairs that
led to Mr. Trump’s nomination as president or to
express the events that freed Britain from the
Europe Union. It is a word that more than implies
that emotions and sentiments and mere whims
and desires have, in our modern times, replaced
reality as the source of truth.
The reason this choice of word is significant
is that it reveals the certain concern over what a
good many writers believe to be a grave error of
our time: the ignoring or the ignorance of truth.
Some may even be ashamed to think or to say it,
as this realization revolts against the very notion
that every word and every thought ought to be
free to be expressed, and yet the apprehension
of this error may indeed lead to dispelling the

false understanding of freedom of speech. It does
offer a possible flicker of sunlight through the
dense fog of this modern license, a certain hope
and even happiness in truth. And perhaps what
G. K. Chesterton said of former days, may be also
true of these latter days, that “the heretic was
proud of not being a heretic. It was the kingdoms
of the world and the police and the judges who
were heretics. He was orthodox” (Heresies, p. 1).
The irony now, however, is that journalists and
the anarchists believe that the common man,
particularly the conservative, not so much the
kings or the politicians or the police, have gone
mad with heresy.

The Fierce Discernment
of Truth
Nevertheless, it can never be overstated
that the loss of truth is at the root of our loss
of humanity and even our loss of happiness.
In order to return to reasoning and restore the
contemplation and comprehension of reality,
modern man must return to a fervent and even
fierce desire for veracity, and to a scrupulous and
unsentimental discernment of truth, but I fear
this will take more logic and more labor than
modern man is willing to provide. For the first
task would be to return to thinking, which is

57

Christian Culture
not merely moving images around in the mind or
perceiving things as one desires to perceive them,
but rather it is connecting and comparing the
images and inferences of the mind with things
as they exist about us. As Mr. Chesterton once,
in a plain and unparadoxical conclusion, wrote:
“Thinking means connecting things” (Orthodoxy,
p. 27). While this statement lacks what many
people are pleased to listen to Mr. Chesterton for
(namely, his witticisms and paradoxes), with this
clarity he has spoken in that simple and sincere
manner of a true Aristotelian and Thomist. One
might even reasonably assume that he had read
in the Summa where St. Thomas writes that
“truth is defined by the conformity of intellect
and thing; and hence to know this conformity is
to know truth” (Summa Theologica, Ia. Q 16. art
2.). For truth, as St. Thomas points out, is not in
the thing itself but in the intellect. In other words,
truth is the reflection and realization of reality
within the intellect. The act of discerning what is
true is the mind’s judging what the thing is; and
the right and rational judgment of the thing, the
accurate discernment of the thing, the correct
comprehension of the thing—that is truth. It
is simply the mind’s understanding a being as
it really and even essentially exists, the mind’s
being faithful to what is. The faulty intellect, the
erroneous mind, fails to conform its thinking to
the thing that is, or perceives a thing to be as it is
not.
The failure of the mind to recognize reality,
the intellect’s being untrue to what is true—this,
one might reasonably and perhaps regrettably
argue, is among the most caustic and calamitous
crises of our time. Fr. Patrick Halpin, in his work
on Christian education, Christian Pedagogy
or, The Instruction and Moral Training of
Youth, writes, “The greatest calamity which
can overtake the human race is the destruction
of truth” (p. 83). This thought Joseph Pieper
shared when he, speaking about the corruption of
communication in advertisements, newspapers,
novels, politics, propaganda, cinemas and
schools, penned these words: “[T]he commonweal
of all people is then threatened, since by
necessity it functions through the medium of
the word. Then we are faced, in short, with the
threat that communication as such decays, that
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public discourse becomes detached from the
notions of truth and reality” (Abuse of Language,
Abuse of Power, p. 27). The failure to realize
reality directly creates a terrible catastrophe not
only for nations but also for the individual man.
For a man without truth can no longer act with
conviction and may—Heaven forbid!—lose his
knowledge and faith in all things, even in God,
when he can no longer discern what is and what
is not. He becomes a man without a map or a
compass attempting the paths and the passages
of the Labyrinth. He becomes the man “that
walketh in darkness, [who] knoweth not whither
he goeth” (Jn 12:35). “For no one knows what is
false, except when he knows it to be false; and if
he knows this, then he knows what is true: for it
is true that it is false” (Augustine. De Trinitate.
Lib. 15. Cap. 10).
Now the great misfortune of this situation
rests in the fact that a man will speak what he
holds to be true whether it be, in reality, true
or false. For communication of what is known
or thought to be true is the primary purpose
of words. It is what St. Augustine calls the
locutiones cordis, “the words of the heart” (Ibid).
Locutiones means, however, not merely words,
so to speak, as individual terms without sense
or syntax, but words formed into internal speech
or discourse, as an utterance of the intellect
once it has grasped, or thinks it has grasped,
the sense and the certainty of a thing. It is from
these “words of the heart,” this conclusion of the
mind’s contemplating a thing outside of itself, this
statement of the soul’s judgment on the object
of its gaze, that the first verbal word, voiced or
written, arises.
The principle of words, or what philosophers
call “the final cause” or the reason-to-be, is this:
a spoken or written word is a sign or a symbol of
a human thought. St. Augustine defines sensible
words more delightfully as “the word that sounds
outwardly is a sign of a word that gives light
inwardly” (ibid. Cap. 11). St. Thomas, shoring up
his thought with the tradition of St. Augustine and
the ancients, says in the Summa¸ “words are said
to be true so far as they are signs of truth in the
intellect” (Ia. Q16. A1.), and again, “A person who
says what is true, utters certain signs which are in
conformity with things” (IIa-IIae. Q109. A2.).

Therefore, it cannot only be the desire of the
speaker to speak as he thinks, but must be the
obligation of the speaker to speak what is. And
speech being what it is, the instrument by which
man becomes most brotherly and communicates
his thoughts to aid and advance his neighbor
and his friend, this freedom of speech is not
only a liberty that can only be allowed in the
pursuit of truth, but also becomes an act of
virtue, of justice and even of charity. This
freedom, as most freedoms do, presupposes
an essential right of man, and that is, the right
to know what is needed to be known for his
own happiness. And truth only, though not all
truths, is essential to that end of man. For only
truth, and never a lie, can properly direct a man
towards his good and ultimate end. As a result,
this freedom of speech, this liberty to speak,
can never be a license merely to talk but only
to communicate the locutiones cordis, only to
express the judgment of the intellect. As Mr.
Pieper points out in his work on language, the
purpose of communication, of speech or writing,
is to converse, to make known, the true thoughts
of one human to another: “First, words convey
reality. We speak in order to name and identify
something that is real, to identify it for someone,
of course” (op. cit. pg. 15). It is a villain and a liar
who deceives with his discourse, who speaks
as true what he knows is not. Such a man, St.
Thomas says, acts against justice, for in declaring
what he thinks to be true, “a man’s chief intention
is to give another his due” (IIa-IIae. Q109. A3 ad
3.). In his Ethics Aristotle says that virtuous
man is he who “calls a thing by its own name,
being truthful both in life and in word” (4.7). Any
communication of any intentional error, any lie,
or any deliberate “false fact,” stands contrary
to the end of speech: “It means specifically to
withhold the other’s share and portion of reality,
to prevent his participation in reality” (Pieper, op.
cit. p. 16).
Severe words, and reasonably so, have been
said against him who speaks contrarily to
what he knows to be true. Such a man firstly
is no good for society, for his words become
arsenal against his fellow man, a poison to his
brothers’ and sisters’ minds, a device to deceive
and destroy his neighbor. The false word is

intended to direct another soul down an untrue
road toward disaster. Quintillian, the renowned
rhetorician of the Roman world, bemoaned the
abuse of language by the sophists of his time,
saying that it would be “better for men to be
born dumb and devoid of reason than to turn the
gifts of providence to their mutual destruction”
(Institutio Oratoria, 12.1). Furthermore, he
added that if his own work on rhetoric was ever
exploited by the practice of deceivers and against
the welfare of society, he would “have rendered
the worst services to mankind, if I forge these
weapons not for a soldier, but for a robber” (ibid).
Mr. Pieper associates this same treachery
to tyranny and even to rape (op. cit. p. 32). Fr.
Halpin’s words of warning bolster the standing of
truth, of true words, of honest communication:
“Lie to a man’s mind and you starve and poison
it. Lie to a man’s character and he may sink never
to rise. Lie to a man’s heart and his faith not only
in man, but in God as well, may be jeopardized”
(82). And again, he writes, “Certainly teach
the young the value of truth, teach the young
the malice of untruth. Let him learn what a
perversion it is of that precious gift of God,
speech. Let him learn why God gave him a
tongue. Let him understand that language is the
bridge by which he is put in communion with his
fellowman for that man’s and for his own good….
but when he does tell his thoughts his lips must
not go counter to his mind” (op. cit. p. 83).
And certainly it is the words of Christ Himself
that illuminates the depth of the treason and
the tragedy of deceit when He compares such
word-frauds and false-communicators to sons of
Satan, saying, “You are of your father the devil,
and the desires of your father you will do. He was
a murderer from the beginning, and stood not in
the truth; because the truth is not in him. When
he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he
is a liar, and the father thereof.” (Jn 8:44).

Patrick Murtha is a teacher at St. Mary’s Academy in
St. Marys, Kansas. He holds a Bachelor’s in Liberal Arts
from St. Mary’s College and a Master of Arts in British and
American Literature from Kansas State University. His work
has appeared in The Angelus and Modern Age.

59

Christian Culture

Why Do
Children Lie?
by SSPX Sisters

God is truth itself. He can neither deceive
nor be deceived, as we say in the act of Faith.
And thus He has given us language in order
to express, like Him, truth alone. So why do
children, who are created in His image and
likeness, tend to lie?
First of all, there are little ones who have too
much imagination. They easily invent stories
and create personalities or imaginary situations.
The boundary between dream and reality
becomes unclear in their minds. In the evening,
for example, they say that the teacher punished
one child for saying bad words, although nothing
of the sort actually happened and they simply
mistake their dreams for reality. We must teach
these children to keep their feet on the ground,
for example by entrusting them with a concrete
responsibility like setting the table or feeding the
60

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dog, and requiring them to do it regularly every
day. When we read them a story, it is important to
point out whether it is a true story or a fictional
story, and we should choose stories preferably
from the former category. Need we add that
television, computers, and video games cause
even more harm to them than to other children,
since they flatter their tendency to flee reality?
This unfortunate habit of not living in reality
can also be the fruit of pride. In the stories
he makes up, and of which he is the hero,
Peter always takes center stage. To brag to his
comrades, he tells them he lives in a very big
house, that he takes fencing and karate, and
that his dad is a fighter pilot. It is the virtue of
humility that will bring Peter back to reality. His
father will explain to him that there is no stupid
job, and that besides, he loves his job even though

it is humble, because he sees in it his duty of
state, God’s will for him to feed his family and
sanctify himself, just like Our Lord, Who was
a humble carpenter in Nazareth. In the family,
simplicity and poverty are loved and practiced,
for that is the spirit of the Beatitudes.
But now we come to Theobald, who is also
a liar, but for another reason. He has a fearful
temperament, shirks his responsibilities and is
afraid of being scolded. He lies to cover up his
naughtiness (“It wasn’t me.”), even if it means
someone else will be punished in his stead. So he
needs to be encouraged to face the truth. Besides,
a fault confessed is half redressed. “But,” says
Mom, “if I find you have lied, you will be punished
twice, once for your naughtiness and once for
your lie.” He will realize that a lie has a heavier
price than loyally owning up to his fault. To make
it easier for children to confess, our attitude must
be like that of our Father of Mercy, always ready
to pardon the repentant sinner; parents who are
severe and not understanding enough will only
strengthen their child’s fear and the lies born of it.

which he humbly sees himself for what he is—
and what we all are, in truth, before God: poor
sinners in need of forgiveness.
Let us give our children the example of
unfailing truthfulness: no false excuses to the
teacher (“I’ll write you a note saying you couldn’t
do your homework because you were sick.”), and
no false reports given by Mom to Dad or vice
versa (“I’ll sign this test you got a bad grade on
myself, don’t mention it to your father, he would
scold you.”).
A child in the habit of always telling the truth
receives here below a reward for his loyalty: he
earns the trust of his parents. He is proud to
deserve it and his parents are proud to grant it to
him:
“Are you the one who dented the car with your
ball?”
“No, Dad, it wasn’t me.”
“Good, I believe you, you are not a liar.”
And a complicit smile unites father and son.
“Let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes,’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no’; all
the rest comes from the devil.”

The Truthfulness of the Parents
The habit of loyally recognizing his faults can
only help a child to make good confessions in

61

Lord Jesus Christ, true light that enlightens every
man who comes into this world, bestow Thy blessing
upon these candles, and sanctify them with the light
of Thy grace. As these tapers burn with visible fire
and dispel the darkness of night, so may our hearts
with the help of Thy grace be enlightened by the
invisible fire of the splendor of the Holy Ghost, and
may be free from all blindness of sin. Clarify the
eyes of our minds that we may see what is pleasing
to Thee and conducive to our salvation. After the
dark perils of this life let us be worthy to reach the
eternal light. Through Thee, Jesus Christ, Savior of
the world, Who in perfect Trinity livest and reignest,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.

296 pp. – Softcover – STK# BD374 – $16.95

To Build the City of God
Dr. Brian McCall​
Much has been written on the general outlines of Catholic social, economic,
and political thought, but what Catholics need today is a guide on how to live
out these principles in their daily lives. Chapters on marriage and the family,
dress, education, profit and wealth, debt, politics in the age of Obama, and
more.

58 pp. – Softcover – STK# 5310 – $3.95

Our Apostolic Mandate
Pope St. Pius X
Originally directed to the bishops of France, Notre Charge Apostolique
("Our Apostolic Mandate") confronts the Sillionist movement. The movement sought, amongst other things, to unite the Catholic faithful with
unbelievers in an attempt to institute reforms in French politics and society.
Though some of its goals were laudable in the light of Catholic social teaching, Pope St. Pius X saw clear socialist leanings within the Sillon. Moreover,
he warned against the movement's liberal idea that political authority
derives solely from the people rather than God.

Visit www.angeluspress.org — 1-800-966-7337
Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music.

by Fr. Dominique Bourmaud, SSPX

Can lay persons, or even nonCatholics, expel demons?
The order of exorcist is the third of the minor
orders, being, like the other minor orders, a
participation in the diaconate. It gives to the
cleric a real power over the devil. However, it is
forbidden for him to use that power, He must first
receive the order of the priesthood, with its much
greater power over the devil. It is in virtue of this
power that the priest performs the exorcisms
in the rite of baptism, or in the blessing of

holy water and some other sacramentals.
Furthermore, if a priest is to do a formal
exorcism, he must receive explicit permission
from his bishop (Rituale XI, I, 1), required by the
Church on account of the dangers involved in
this personal struggle with the evil one and his
minions.
However, this does not mean that a person who
is not a priest does not have any power over the
devil. To the contrary, it is the valid sacrament
of baptism, which makes us members of the
mystical body of Christ, one with our divine
65

Christian Culture
Savior, that is fhe foundation of our freedom from
the slavery of the devil and of all our real power
over him.
The daring confidence that a Catholic ought
to have face to face with the devil, entirely
founded on the Passion and Cross by which he is
vanquished and cast back into hell, is described,
in her usual vivid fashion, by St. Teresa of Avila
in her autobiography:
“I went on. ‘If this Lord is powerful, as I see
He is, and know He is, and if the devils are His
slaves . . . what harm can they do me, who am a
servant of this Lord and King? How can I fail to
have fortitude enough to fight against all hell?’
So I took a cross in my hand and it really seemed
that God was giving me courage: in a short time
I found I was another person and I should not
have been afraid to wrestle with devils, for with
the aid of that cross I believed I could easily
vanquish them all…It certainly seemed as if I
had frightened all these devils, for I became quite
calm and had no more fear of them. . . . I have
acquired an authority over them, bestowed upon
me by the Lord of all, so that they are no more
trouble to me than flies” (Chapter XXV).
Consequently a baptized Catholic who has the
true Faith and is in the state of sanctifying grace
need not fear the devil at all, but can command
the devil, in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ,
provided that he have Faith, confidence, the
state of grace, and no attachment to the things
of this world through which the devil typically
overcomes us. Let us listen to St. Teresa again:
“These devils keep us in terror because
we make ourselves liable to be terrorized
by contracting other attachments—to
honors, for example, and to possessions and
pleasures. . . . This is the great pity of it. If only
we will hate everything for God’s sake and
embrace the Cross and try to serve Him in truth,
the devil will fly from these truths as from the
plague” (Op. cit.).
Father Gabriele Amorth, official exorcist of
the diocese of Rome, in his book An Exorcist
Tells His Story, confirms that an exorcist has
an additional and particular power, but that in
addition “Jesus gave the power to expel demons
to all those who believe in him and act in his
name. I am referring to private prayer, which
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we can collectively call ‘delivrance prayers’” (p.
153). He goes on to explain that the power to
expel devils is one of the charisms mentioned by
St. Paul (I Cor. 12), although he also points out
that great difficulty exists in discerning those
who have a real charism from impostors, whose
pretense is so often used by the devil himself.
(Op. cit. p.155).
Clearly ecclesiastical authority alone can make
the discernment, but as Fr. Amorth points out,
the Church never puts its authority behind such
a gift—“I know of cases in which ecclesiastical
authorities intervened to alert the faithful against
charlatans and swindlers, but I do not know
of any who are officially recognized to have
such charisms” (Ib.). All the more could it never
discern as being true the actions against the devil
of those separated from the unity of the Church
by heresy or schism. What, then, of the many
claims amongst Protestants of the power to cast
our devils? Theoretically, it is not impossible that
they be true, provided that the person is in good
faith, that is in invincible ignorance as to his
separation from the Church, and that he lives an
exemplary life of humility and prayer. However,
since falsehood and deception are so easy, since
this ability is so easily a passing phenomenon or
pretense, and since the devil so easily highjacks
the entire charismatic movement by his lies and
deception, it would be most imprudent to accept
any claim of demonic expulsion, especially
if done by a non-Catholic or member of some
charismatic group.
As for those non-baptized persons, pagans,
sorcerers, and others who claim to have some
paranormal powers to deliver from diabolic
manifestations, they cannot in any way have
a power over the devil. To the contrary, they
are in his power. If they give the appearance of
expelling devils, it is only a temporary deception,
a part of a diabolical intrigue, a pure pretense;
it is one of the lies in which the father of lies
excels. Of such efforts can be applied the words
of our Divine Savior, when accused of casting
out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of devils:
“Every kingdom divided against itself is brought
to desolation, and house will fall upon house. If,
then, Satan also is divided against himself how
shall his kingdom stand?” (Lk. 11:17,18).

Why do we use the name
“Jesus” for Christ?
Answer: The names given by Almighty God
in the Old Testament are in general symbolic
of the reality of what a person is. Examples
include Adam and Abraham. We see this also
with Josuah, (or Josue, in the Vulgate), who
was chosen to lead the chosen people into
the promised land. In fact, we read that this
name was given by Moses to Oshea (Osee in
the Vulgate), the son of Nun, in Numbers 13:17.
The meaning of the name is “Jehovah saves,” or
“Savior,” for he would save the Israelites from
the forty years’ exile in the desert and lead them
to victory. The holy name of “Jesus” is in fact
nothing other than the Greek form of this name,
as can be seen in Acts 7:45, written in Greek,
which uses the name of Jesus for the Joshua
who led the Israelites when they brought the
tabernacle into the promised land: “Which also
our fathers receiving, brought in with Jesus, into
the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drove
out before the face of our fathers.”
We read also in the Old Testament that this
name was not infrequent after the return from
the Babylonian captivity. The author of the
book of the Ecclesiasticus, originally written in
Hebrew by Jesus, the son of Sirach of Jerusalem,
was translated into Greek by his grandson, also
called Jesus. Since the text that we have available
is the Greek one, it is the Greek form of the name
which is used. Also Nehemias 7:7.
All of this was but a preparation for the use
of the holy name of Jesus in the New Testament
for the Savior of the world, the chosen One, the
Son of God who would save sinners. Although
St. Matthew’s Gospel was originally written in

Aramaic, the version that we have is the Greek
one, and so the Greek form of the name of
“Jehovah saves” is obviously used in the text in
which the divine mission of Christ is declared
by the angel of the Lord to St. Joseph: “And she
shall bring forth a son: and thou shalt call his
name JESUS. For he shall save his people from
their sins” (Mt. 1:21). The same name is given by
St. Luke, writing in Greek, when he describes the
apparition of St. Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin
Mary at the moment of the Annunciation, but
without the explanation of the meaning of the
name: “And thou shalt call his name JESUS. He
shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the
Most High” (Lk. 1:31).
Hence the veneration that is given to the holy
name of Jesus, the sweetest of all names, honey
to the mouth and melody in the ear of the faithful,
for it expresses the reality of all that God the
Son has done to take away our sins, to give us a
share in the divine life, and to open the gates of
heaven. This veneration is perfectly expressed in
the Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus, which ends
with the expression of our dependence on Him:
“O Lord, give us a perpetual fear as well as love of
Thy holy Name, for Thou never ceasest to govern
those Thou foundest upon the strength of Thy
love.”

Can I confess as sins
actions or words that I did
not realize were sinful at
the time I did them?
This question concerns the remote matter of
the sacrament of penance, namely the sins that
are to be confessed. This is necessary matter,
that must be confessed, if it concerns mortal
67

Christian Culture
sins committed after baptism which have not
yet been confessed. It is free matter, that may
be confessed, but which does not have to be
confessed, if it concerns venial sins committed
after baptism, or any sins that have already been
absolved in the sacrament of penance.
However, a further distinction has to be
made, namely between certain and doubtful
matter for the sacrament of penance. Sins are
doubtful matter if it is not certain that there was
culpability at the time the acts were committed.
This is the case in question here. This can happen
if a person had an erroneous conscience, that is,
when he did not realize the moral evil of what
he was doing, such as dressing immodestly in
public, or watching suggestive movies. Now that
he understands the evil of such actions he regrets
them and wants to confess them, but since he
did not understand at the time that they were
certainly evil, they are doubtful matter. The other
frequent case of doubtful matter is when there is
a doubt as to the consent given, as in the case of
impure thoughts or sudden movements of anger.
In these cases, likewise, there is real regret and
the desire to confess what is now perceived as
having been disordered and is known to have
been wrong. Can such sins, that are doubtful
matter, and which are certainly very frequent, be
confessed?
In order to resolve this question, a further
distinction is made, namely between sufficient
and insufficient matter. Sufficient matter is that
which suffices to receive a valid sacramental
absolution. Only certain matter is sufficient for a
valid sacrament, whether it be necessary matter
(= unconfessed mortal sins) or free matter (=
confessed mortal sins and all venial sins), as is
stated in Canon 902 (1917 Code). Doubtful matter
is insufficient matter, not because there is an
absence of culpability, but because the confessor
cannot judge with certainty of the culpability
and grant his absolution of it. It is for this reason
that there is no strict obligation of confessing
even mortal sins if there is a real doubt as to the
awareness of the culpability at the time (Council
of Trent, Db 899 & Prummer, Man. Th. Mor. III,
§375).
However, this does not mean that doubtful
matter cannot be confessed. The penitent can be
68

The Angelus

January - February 2017

very much aware of the culpability of his actions,
and yet for the confessor it is objectively doubtful
matter. He may not have been fully aware of the
culpability of his actions at the time, but this
does not at all mean that he does not have any
culpability at all. Far from it. How frequently it
happens that our ignorance is at least partially
culpable. Likewise, we understand the culpability
of those immediate actions, for which there is not
sufficient reflection, to constitute certain matter.
Yet, it is our fault if we get angry, or make some
spiteful remark, or act with impetuosity, and we
could and should have avoided it. Must these
obviously culpable acts not be confessed simply
because they do not constitute certain matter for
the confessor?
It is certainly true that such indeliberate venial
sins, or material sins (whose culpability was
not known at the time) do not alone constitute
sufficient matter, and that if they alone were
confessed, the confessor would have to refuse
absolution, rather than to give an invalid
sacrament, due to lack of sufficient matter.
However, this does not mean that they cannot
be confessed. They certainly can be confessed
if they are combined with other sins, which
are certain matter. These can be deliberate
sins committed since one’s last confession, or
already confessed sins from one’s past life. If
they are mentioned the confession is certainly
valid, and the absolution will also include the
culpability, clear to the penitent, but doubtful
to the confessor, of other indeliberate sins that
do not constitute necessary matter. Hence
the importance for those who go regularly to
confession to always mention, at least in general,
a sin from one’s past life. With these they can
confess all their imperfections, and receive the
grace of the sacrament, the absolution, and the
spiritual direction of the priest to overcome
them. More than this, they in fact should confess
such imperfections, if they want their frequent
confessions to help them to overcome their faults
and strive for perfection. This is the correct use
of the sacrament of penance by those who desire
to go to Confession regularly, as the Church
recommends.
This is the clear teaching of Father Prummer,
Op. Cit. §324:

“By imperfections in this subject are to be
understood those acts which are less good,
which objectively speaking do not constitute a
certain transgression of the eternal law. Since,
indeed, such acts individually considered cannot
be indifferent, such aforesaid imperfections
are in reality either good or bad acts; but
since the confessor cannot ordinarily judge
with certainty of their sinfulness, they are
not sufficient matter for absolution. Thus, for
example, those who accuse themselves of
having omitted their morning prayers, or of
having had involuntary distractions in prayer,
or having suffered sudden and involuntary
movements of anger or of concupiscence, bring
insufficient matter for sacramental absolution.
But such penitents can praiseworthily declare
such imperfections [in confession] in order that
the confessor might judge better of the state of
their soul, and give good counsels, but they are
greatly to be encouraged that in addition to these
imperfections, they at least confess some sin of
their past life[.]”

344 pp–Hardcover–STK# 8343✱–$25.55

The Best of Questions
and Answers
The best questions and the best answers of 30 years of The Angelus. This will be a family’s
heirloom reference book for everyday Catholic living to match the Catholic Faith we believe
and the Latin Mass we attend. Over 300 answers classified under 30 subtitles.

–– Marriage, Parenting, Family Life
and Rearing Children
–– Science and Medical Matters

–– Bible and Biblical Matters
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and Saints

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–– The Papacy and the Church Teachings

69

News from Tradition
Pope Francis creates 17 New Cardinals

70

On Sunday October 9, 2016, Pope Francis had
announced that he would create 17 new cardinals
in a consistory which would be held on November
19, 2016. Of the 17, only 13 are under the age of
80 years and thus are eligible to vote in the next
conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis. The
new cardinals are:

Emeritus of Mohale’s Hoek Lesotho
Father Ernest Simoni, presbytery of the
Archdiocese of Shkodrë-Pult, Scutari, Albania.

Archbishop Mario Zenari, Italy
Archbishop Dieudonné Nzapalainga, Central
African Republic
Archbishop Carlos Osoro Sierra, Spain
Archbishop Sérgio da Rocha, Brazil
Archbishop Blase J. Cupich, U.S.A.
Archbishop Patrick D’Rozario, Bangladesh
Archbishop Baltazar Enrique Porras Cardozo,
Venezuela
Archbishop Jozef De Kesel, Belgium
Archbishop Maurice Piat, Mauritius
Archbishop Kevin Joseph Farrell, U.S.A.
Archbishop Carlos Aguiar Retes, Mexico
Archbishop John Ribat, Papua Nuova Guinea
Archbishop Mons. Joseph William Tobin U.S.A.
Archbishop Anthony Soter Fernandez,
Archbishop Emeritus of Kuala Lumpur Malaysia
Archbishop Renato Corti, Archbishop
Emeritus of Novara Italy
Archbishop Sebastian Koto Khoarai, Bishop

Laity, Family, and Life a few weeks before the
announcement of the consistory. All Prefects in
the Roman Curia are Cardinals, so Farrell being
given the “red hat” was to be expected. The other
two Archbishops named present a clear message
about the particular direction Pope Francis
intends to take the Church.
Archbishop Blase Cupich of Chicago was one
of Pope Francis’s first episcopal appointments for
the United States. He has a long record of favoring
the same “reforms” that Pope Francis seems
intent upon forcing upon the Church, particularly
regarding immigration, the environment, and,
most worrying, the Sacrament of Marriage and
the reception of Holy Communion by those in
adulterous civil marriages. Even though the
Archbishop of Chicago has traditionally been
raised to the College of Cardinals, Pope Francis’s
desire to make the College more international
has often led to the omission of naming some

The Angelus

January - February 2017

The three Americans on the list are all rather
interesting in their own right. Archbishop Farrell
was named Prefect of the Congregation for

archbishops from traditionally cardinatial Sees
from the College of Cardinals. It seems the Holy
Father’s desire to have likeminded bishops
given the “red hat” outweighs his desire to
internationalize the College.
Archbishop Joseph Tobin, a member of the
Redemptorist Order, is the current Archbishop
of Newark, NJ. At the time of his elevation to the
College of Cardinals, he was the Archbishop of
Indianapolis and previously he was secretary
to the Congregation of Religious. In that role he
was very instrumental in making sure that the
apostolic visitation of all the American Orders
of Women Religious became a “non-issue” and
facilitated allowing those orders which have all
but abandoned traditional religious life (and in
some cases have abandoned the Catholic faith—at
least in practice) to continue as they are. Tobin’s
appointment to the Archdiocese of Newark was
announced on November 7, 2016. His elevation to
the College of Cardinals is even more interesting
since neither Newark nor Indianapolis has ever
had one of its archbishops given the “red hat.”

Here again we see that Pope Francis is seeking
to remake the College of Cardinals by naming
bishops who are “on the same page” as he is
regarding the nature of the Church. In addition,
Tobin is said to have a personality very similar to
that of Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York. It will
be very interesting to see how these two Cardinal
Archbishops interact with each other since only
the Hudson River separates their archdioceses.
Noticeably absent from the list is Archbishop
Charles Chaput of Philadelphia. This is the second
time Chaput has been passed over even though
Philadelphia has a long tradition of its archbishops
being made a Cardinal. Although no great lover of
the Traditional Mass and a very strong proponent
of Religious Liberty (American style), Archbishop
Chaput has made it clear that he will not go along
with many of the more radical ideas which Pope
Francis has put forward over the past three years.
This may well be the reason he continues to be
passed over in favor of bishops more amenable to
Pope Francis’s revolution.

King Kigeli V Ndahindurwa of Rwanda dies
King Kigeli V Ndahindurwa, the last Catholic
king of Rwanda, died at the age of 80 on October
16, 2016. He came to the throne of Rwanda
in 1959 and ruled until the abolition of the
monarchy in 1961, when he was forced into exile.
He eventually came to reside in the United States
where he lately worked to raise money to assist
the orphans and refugees of Rwanda who were
suffering from the results of the tribal warfare
which gripped Rwanda for so many years.
The following message was posted on the
king’s website: “It is with a very heavy heart
that we announce that His Majesty King Kigeli
V Ndahindurwa, the last King of Rwanda,
died early this morning. He was a devout and
dedicated believer and the last anointed African
Roman Catholic king to reign over a full country.
Funeral details, the heir to the Royal throne of
Rwanda, and related details are being discussed
and will be announced in good order. His
Majesty, born as Jean-Baptiste Ndahindurwa in
1936, took the regnal name of Kigeli V upon his

rise to the throne.”
In charity, it is proper to pray for the repose
of his soul, but his death is also an opportunity
to reflect on the great missionary activity in
Africa which brought about the conversion of
large sections of that vast continent to Our Lord
and His Holy Church. It was through the efforts,
aided by Divine grace, of bishops and priests like
Archbishop Lefebvre that so many souls were
won for our Lord Jesus Christ. In a time when
we are faced with a secular world which calls
us to make all civilizations of equal value, it is
good to remember that it was God’s holy Church
which for many decades kept peace amongst the
various warring African tribes by giving to the
native peoples a Faith which transcended natural
human ties. Without the Faith, fallen human
nature once again takes over and results in the
kind of tribal warfare and genocide which the
people of Rwanda experienced in the latter 20th
century.
King Kigeli V Ndahindurwa
71

News from Tradition
Norcia’s Basilica of St. Benedict Destroyed

72

Readers will recall that last August’s
earthquake in central Italy caused damage
to the interior of the Basilica of St. Benedict
in Norcia (the city of St. Benedict’s birth).
The Benedictine monks had hoped to collect
sufficient funds to repair the damage caused by
the quake—sadly, this was not meant to be. On
Sunday, October 30, 2016, another earthquake
struck the region, with its epicenter being the
town of Norcia itself. The 6.6 magnitude quake
completely destroyed the beautiful edifice
along with many other buildings in the town.
Thankfully, none of the monks were physically

it is interesting to note that the Basilica was
completely destroyed on the same day that
Pope Francis left for Lund, Sweden in order
to take part in a joint prayer service with
Lutherans to “celebrate” the 500th anniversary
of the Protestant revolt which shook the
foundations of the Faith of so many in Europe
and later spread its errors to the whole world.
Remembering that it was St. Benedict (the
Father of Western Monasticism) and the monks
of the Order he founded that saved the Faith and
Western Civilization following the collapse of
the Roman Empire by preserving the spiritual

injured, but one can only imagine their spiritual
pain in seeing the destruction of the place
where the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was
offered and the Divine Office chanted.
The earthquake was extremely powerful and
tremors were felt in Rome itself. Although it is
often imprudent to connect natural disasters
with other events of a purely human making,

and intellectual treasures of the West, it is no
small irony that the basilica in his honor was
destroyed on the same day the pope traveled to
“celebrate” the event that was the “beginning
of the end” of the Catholic Europe. One may
rightly ask if it was indeed irony, or something
infinitely more telling . . .

The Angelus

January - February 2017

Saint Father Jacques Hamel?
The French priest, Father Jacques Hamel, who
was murdered in the sanctuary of his parish church
in July of 2016 has had his cause for canonization
opened by Pope Francis, waiving the traditional
five-year waiting period after a candidate’s death.
This action by the Holy Father was announced by
the Archbishop of Rouen, Dominique Lebrun, at
a special Mass held in the church Saint-Etiennedu-Rouvray where Father Hamel was killed. The
Mass followed the ceremony of purification of the
profaned church. It was fairly certain that Pope
Francis would take this action since he called the
French priest a martyr numerous times in a sermon
he gave some weeks before approving the opening of
the process of canonization.
With the current “ecumania” that has gripped
the Church since Vatican II, it should come as no
surprise that His Excellency, Archbishop Lebrun,
invited the Muslim residents of the town to attend
the ceremony and Mass. It was not immediately
reported whether any did attend, but the continual
attempt by bishops and even the pope himself to
portray Islam as a “religion of peace” and those who
perpetrate violence as extremists in the Muslim
community staggers the imagination. Aside from

the obvious syncretism that this fawning over Islam
creates in the minds of Catholics, it also has not
served to deter further attacks on Catholics (or the
other Christians of the Middle East and Europe).
Raymond Cardinal Burke is one notable exception to
this fawning (and one can only hope that there are
others). In an interview with Il Giornale (an Italian
newspaper) he stated: “It is clear that Muslims have
as their ultimate goal conquest and power over the
world. . . . Islam, through sharia, their law, will rule
the world and permit violence against infidels, such
as Christians. But we find it hard to recognize this
reality and to respond by defending the Christian
faith.” Relatively strong words from Cardinal Burke,
but readers of this column know well that for his
trouble, His Eminence has been effectively sidelined
by Pope Francis.
One should also note that for a person to be a true
martyr, they have to be killed in hatred of the Faith
(odium fidei) and also freely chose to embrace
their death for Christ. While there is no doubt Fr.
Hamel was murdered in odium fidei, the question
of whether he freely embraced his death as a martyr
must be proved before he can be declared a martyr
saint.

Father Gabriele Amorth, RIP
Father Gabriele Amorth, the chief exorcist
for the Diocese of Rome, died in September
of 2016 at the age of 91. Father Amorth stated
that he performed upwards of 70,000 exorcisms
over the 30 years he held his position in Rome.
Over the years, some of his statements caused
a sensation in the secular press because they
were critical of some current fads such as yoga
and the Harry Potter series of books, saying
that they could open doors to satanic activity.
Father Amorth also made it clear that modern
society’s fascination with the occult, witchcraft,
and spiritualism were also opening more people
to possession by evil spirits, and noted that
he believed that both Adolf Hitler and Josef
Stalin were both possessed and that many Nazi
leaders were actively involved in Satanism. His

statements were not limited to just critiques of
various things in the secular culture, however.
He also made it very clear that he believed
that the devil had infested Rome and that the
consequences of this could be seen in cardinals
who don’t believe in Christ, bishops connected
with demons, and the sexual abuse scandal.
At the same time news of Father Amorth
was being reported, bishops in both the United
States and the United Kingdom were noting the
significant rise in cases of satanic possession and
the urgent need for more priests to take up the
apostolate of exorcism. Although every priest is
able to perform the ritual of exorcism by virtue of
his sacred ordination, the Church mandates that
no priest should perform an exorcism without the
permission of his bishop or legitimate superior.

73

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A Diabolical
Disorientation
by Fr. Thouvenot, SSPX

For the past fifty years, the Church has been going through an unprecedented crisis. The confusion
continues to grow and the best term used so far to
describe the gravity of the situation is that of Pope
Paul VI, who spoke of the “self-destruction of the
Church,”1 that is, her destruction by the legitimately
established authorities of the Holy Church of God.
Archbishop Lefebvre spoke of “the masterstroke of
Satan,” which consists in “the spread of the revolutionary principles introduced into the Church by the
Church’s own authority”: “Satan has truly accomplished a masterstroke: he has managed to have
those who keep the Catholic Faith condemned by
the very men who should defend and propagate it.”2
It is very difficult to maintain in all circumstances
a balanced judgment so as to stumble neither into
heresy, be it modernist or liberal, nor into schism, be
it theoretical (Sedevacantism) or practical (separa-

tion from the ecclesiastical authorities).
In order to do so, we believe it important to point
out a dichotomy that was introduced from the very
start of the Council.
Pope John XXIII, invoking the signs of the times,
attributed a double goal to the conciliar assembly:
on the one hand, a general reform of the Church (ad
intra goal), and on the other hand, an openness to
the world to put the Church to work for the unity of
the human race (ad extra goal). The general reform
of the Church was sullied by the spirit of adapting
to the present times under the cover of an aggiornamento, in which pastoral care took over doctrinal
teaching.
As for openness to the world, far from leading
the world to adore the true God, it has lead the
Church to place herself at the service of globalized
humanity.
75

Theological Studies
“Secondary Christianity” and the Hierarchy of
Ends
Let us start by saying that it is perfectly legitimate for a Council’s goal to be to launch a general
reform of the Church and to reexamine its relations
with earthly powers. The problem is that the reform
was accomplished in keeping with the methods
and values of the liberal world, and not with those
of the Gospel and of the constant Magisterium
of the Church. What is more, the living forces of
the Church have been dissolved in the pursuit of
secondary ends, and even ends that are foreign to
her mission. Romano Amerio analyzed this point
perfectly: “The Church seems to be afraid of being
further rejected, as it already has been by a large
part of the human race. Therefore, it sets about
watering down its own characteristic set of values
and playing up the things it has in common with the
world: all the world’s causes are thus taken up by
the Church. The Church offers its assistance to the
world and is attempting to put itself at the head of
human progress.”3
In their desire to satisfy the expectations and
needs of the entire world, be it peace or security,
material well-being or the climate, and more generally, the “coming of a happier era,”4 the men of
the Church put her to work not for her sole Lord
and Master, but for today’s world, a materialistic,
consumeristic, pleasure-seeking, and apostate
world, which it is illusory to try to evangelize without
condemning its practices and corrupted morals, and
its evil and deadly laws.5
That is what Archbishop Lefebvre meant when
he wrote to Cardinal Seper, then prefect of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, denouncing the destruction of the Church’s fighting spirit
and calling liberal ecumenism a true “diabolical
instrument for the auto-destruction of the Church.”6
Things would be much simpler if the hierarchy
of ends was clearly established and respected: the
Church’s mission is to lead men to heaven. She
preaches the Gospel and the means of salvation to
peoples and nations, societies, and institutions. She
distributes the divine goods through the administration of the sacraments. She sanctifies souls and
communities. As for her enemies, especially the
false religions, the atheist powers, and the hostile
powers or persecutors, she tolerates them, prays
for their conversion, and knows how to stand up to

76

The Angelus

January - February 2017

them when need be.
But today, the Church wishes to dialogue with
everyone, finds values she can share with even her
worst enemies, and tirelessly pursues the double
goal the Council assigned to her: to reform herself
continuously and open herself to the world. The result of this permanent activity is that she is torn between remaining faithful to her evangelical mission,
that which requires the transmission of the integral
deposit of the Faith, and adapting to the indefinite
progress of secularized societies. The Church’s position is constantly being adapted depending on her
different interlocutors and the multiple and various
human ends they pursue. The result is a general
confusion: the revelation of Our Lord Jesus Christ is
reduced to the same rank as false doctrines and the
most extravagant opinions. Archbishop Lefebvre
saw this as a change of direction and a consequence
of Modernism:
“More fascinated by the glory of the modern
world than by the glory of God and Our Lord Jesus
Christ, the members of the clergy have changed the
direction of the ship in order to be welcomed by the
modern world at all costs.
This is the mortal sin of Modernism: it abandons
the requirements of the Faith, and even of reason, to
enter into a world of ambiguities and ambivalence. It
pulls away from dogma and truth and takes pleasure
in what is undefined and confused, the vagueness
of a language that is supposedly adapted to the
modern world and that no longer wishes to define
anything, allowing for all interpretations, and thus
lets heresies, errors, and moral laxity run loose.”7
Thus is the divine cult defiled by an equivocal,
Protestant-flavored rite; thus is the monarchical
government of the Church jeopardized by democratic collegiality; and thus does indifferentism spread,
favoring inter-religious meetings and manifestations. And henceforth, morality itself is shaken
at the roots, as the pastoral approach constantly
bypasses or adapts to the present conditions of
modern life without God; no longer is it a true morality, that which doctrine—the teaching of Christ—has
established and fixed for all time: ‘Heaven and earth
shall pass, but My words shall not pass.’”8

Pope Francis’ Policy
Pope Francis is disconcerting in more than one

respect. He seems to go in every different direction.
But in so doing he remains logical and coherent with
the Council. Yet the Council had come to be criticized and its ambitions revised downwards. Paul VI
was besieged with doubts already at his time. John
Paul II left a strong imprint, all the while letting his
right hand man, Cardinal Ratzinger, denounce the
false spirit of the Council9 that he saw as the origin
of the “silent apostasy.” As for Benedict XVI, he
wished to impose the hermeneutics of continuity10
in order to justify the conciliar reform, while denying
any rupture with Tradition. He did not wish to look
reality in the face, and sought to exonerate Vatican
II from all responsibility for the “destruction of the
liturgy” or the “crisis of the Faith” that he was right
to denounce.
Pope Francis has none of these hesitations.
Formed during the years of the Council, ordained
a priest in 1969, he has known only the modern
Church born of Vatican II. He does not waste time on
the spirit and the letter of the Council, the hermeneutics of continuity, the “council of the media,”11
or a “para-Council.”12 He moves forward, seeking to
incarnate in his acts the “freshness” of the message
of Vatican II that is as topical, as living as ever. For
that is precisely the heart of the matter: what makes
the truth of a religion now is life.13

The Fight of Tradition
In the face of the conciliar revolution, Archbishop
Lefebvre laid down a categorical refusal to all that
could represent a danger for the Catholic Faith,
the Catholic cult, and Catholic life. He pursued
through thick and thin the work of restoration that
Providence had entrusted to him: founding seminaries, opening priories and schools, supporting families, and encouraging many religious congregations.
In this gigantic battle, the founder of Econe never
forgot that the Society was a branch of the Church,
a part of a whole, of a whole of order. He always
sought on the one hand to preserve his work from
Modernism and the reforms that had emptied the
churches, seminaries, and novitiates, and on the
other hand to defend in the eyes of the Church’s
highest authorities the soundness of his attitude
and his indefectible attachment to the Holy See, to
the person of the Vicar of Christ, and to his sublime function as pastor of the sheep and lambs of

the flock. Thus, in a brochure entitled “Le coup de
maître de Satan” (The Masterstroke of Satan), one
can read the sermon given by Archbishop Lefebvre
on September 18, 1977 for the 30th anniversary of
his episcopal consecration. In it he explains “the
three principal gifts God has given us: the pope, the
Blessed Virgin Mary, and the Eucharistic Sacrifice.”14
It was the same thing ten years later when for
the 40th anniversary of his episcopal consecration
Archbishop Lefebvre reaffirmed both his refusal
to apply the conciliar reforms along with his duty
to maintain Tradition, and his hope of seeing the
Society at long last supported by the pope, recognized as such and free to pursue its work of forming priests, sanctifying souls, and evangelizing
peoples.15
Just as there is a strict right for the truly Catholic
Mass to be celebrated and honored everywhere, in
the same way the truly Catholic priesthood and all
the formation leading to it have a strict right to be
encouraged and honored everywhere. The same
goes for the members of this society of priests, the
Society of St. Pius X; because it is truly Catholic, it
has a strict right to be recognized without ambivalence or ambiguity. And it is the same, too, for all the
works of Tradition — monasteries, congregations,
schools and missions —that everywhere show the
vitality of Catholicism. That is the right Archbishop
Lefebvre demanded of the Roman authorities: “We
ask for something very simple and very legitimate:
recognition that the Church of all time, the Church of
our childhood, has the right to continue. It is a right
based on Scripture, Tradition, the Magisterium of
the Church, and the whole history of the Church.”16

Neither Heretic nor Schismatic
The prelate of Econe was profoundly a man of the
Church, who suffered from the unjust suppression of
the Society and from the censorships and condemnations to which he was subjected: “I have to admit
that these persecutions have been harsh, severe,
and continuous, not only from those in Rome, but
also from all the bishops who have adhered to the
Council, who have adhered to the novelties and who
consequently can no longer tolerate Tradition to be
continued in their churches.”17
He was also a magnanimous and inventive soul,
prompt to propose solutions or possibilities for

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an agreement so long as it was for the good of
Tradition, and favored the return of Rome and of the
entire Church to the treasure Providence willed to
entrust to her. Thus did he suggest that the experience of Tradition be tried in every diocese, for example, by allowing the traditional Mass everywhere.
On September 11, 1976, at Castel Gondolfo,
Archbishop Lefebvre proposed to Pope Paul VI a
modus vivendi, which he mentioned again in his letter to Archbishop Benelli on May 11, 1977: “I see no
other profitable solution for peace and the good of
souls than this one: ask bishops to be benevolent
and tolerant towards the desire expressed by many
faithful to have either a place of worship or a time
allotted in a church for traditional ceremonies, to
which they are profoundly attached because of the
supernatural good that they procure for their souls
and the souls of their children.” On December 24,
1978, he begged John Paul II “to say but a word, a
single word, as Successor of Peter, as Pastor of the
universal Church, to the bishops of the entire world.
Let them be: We authorize the free exercise of what
century-old Tradition used for the sanctification of
souls. What difficulty would such an attitude present? None. The bishops would decide on the places
and times reserved for this Tradition. Unity would
immediately be found around the bishop of the
place. But what benefits for the Church: the renewal
of seminaries and monasteries; a great fervor in parishes. The bishops would be astounded to recover
within a few years’ time a surge of devotion and
sanctification that they thought lost forever.”
While he hoped a pope would reestablish order in
the Church, he considered it his duty “to do everything possible to maintain the respect of the hierarchy,” all the while distinguishing “between the divine
institution to which we must be very attached and
the errors that evil shepherds can profess.” And he
added: “We must do everything possible to enlighten them and convert them by our prayers and our
example of gentleness and firmness. As our priories
are founded, we will work to insert ourselves into the
dioceses by our true priestly apostolate submitted
to the successor of Peter, as successor of Peter and
not as successor of Luther or Lamennais.”18
In 1985, faced with the general hostility encountered in the dioceses, Archbishop Lefebvre asked
“that the official recognition that was ours from 1970
to 1975 be restored to us and that the pontifical right

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of the Society be recognized, as it is established in
many dioceses throughout the world.”19 He sought
to obtain a form of exemption, 20 along the lines
either of a prelature or of an ordinariate.
Archbishop Lefebvre explored the solution of
a prelature as early as April 25, 1979, in a letter to
John Paul II: “Would it not be possible to grant us the
status that already exists for the nullius prelatures
such as the Canons of St. Maurice in Switzerland,
who have a bishop at their head, or the Mission of
France, whose Superior is also a bishop?”21
He afterwards considered the solution of an
ordinariate in the settlement proposal he sent
Cardinal Gagnon on November 21, 1987. In his letter
Archbishop Lefebvre wrote: “We willingly accept to
be recognized by the pope as we are and to have a
seat in the Eternal City, to collaborate in the renewal
of the Church; we have never wished to break with
the successor of Peter, nor to consider the Holy
See as vacant, despite the trials this has cost us.
We submit to you a project for reintegration and the
normalization of our relations with Rome.”
While addressing these propositions to the Holy
See, Archbishop Lefebvre fully measured the gravity
of the crisis and, in the face of the growing disorder and general apostasy, he resigned himself to
choosing successors to ensure the longevity of his
work and the survival of Tradition. Wrongly judged,
“operation survival” was anything but a seditious or revolutionary action. Faced with disorder,
Archbishop Lefebvre brought order: he consecrated
bishops. In so doing, he saved the Catholic priesthood, creating an indispensable condition for the
Church to rise again and for all things to be restored
in Jesus Christ.

Today
The founder of Econe passed away on March
25, 1991, 25 years ago. Despite the prediction that
Tradition would quickly disappear, the Society has
pursued its activities and expanded slowly but
steadily. Under the Superior General’s leadership,
it has remained faithful to the balanced position
it has always held. After Pope Paul VI wished to
forbid the Mass of all time at the 1976 consistory,
Pope Benedict XVI restored its freedom with his
July 7, 2007 decree. After Archbishop Lefebvre was
condemned, unjustly censured (suspens a divinis, ex-

communication), his successors, who had also been
declared excommunicated, were relieved of this
slanderous label on January 21, 2009. After Vatican
II was, so to speak, sanctified, and its authority declared equal to that of the Council of Nicaea, 22 some
of its most emblematic statements and doctrines
are now scarcely more than debatable opinions and
open questions. 23 Although the Vatican sought to
take advantage of the 2009 doctrinal discussions
to impose on the Society of St. Pius X a ground text
and then a doctrinal preamble to make it submit to
the teachings of the modern Magisterium, these
discussions never once questioned whether the
Society was Catholic. After their ministry was declared illegitimate in 2009, the pope recognized the
full jurisdiction of the priests of this same Society to
hear confessions during the Holy Year. 24 This series
of events proves Archbishop Lefebvre right in the
long run. How could we not see in it the hand of God?
But we must not deceive ourselves. The conciliar revolution continues, and spreads its harmful
influence on minds and hearts with every day that
passes. The latest Apostolic Exhortation25 that sows
confusion and risks causing the ruin of souls26 is
proof of this. The authorities of the Church are still
mostly won over to the Council and its reforms,
but they no longer systematically condemn those
who preserve Tradition. 27 We cannot truly say they
defend or propagate the Catholic Faith in its purity
and integrity28 — Satan’s masterstroke and the mystery of iniquity are still at work— but at least they
no longer condemn those who keep the Faith and
spread it and who denounce the modern errors and
those propagating them. Such at least is the latest
progress after the Superior General of the Society of
St. Pius X’s meeting with Pope Francis and especially with Archbishop Pozzo, secretary of the Pontifical
Commission Ecclesia Dei. The latter went so far as
to admit that the Society can maintain its critical
positions on the Council and expose them publicly. 29
This new attitude can be explained by the extremely confused situation in which the Church
finds herself and which some, among the most lucid
in Rome, are finally acknowledging. Even if they are
still timid, we cannot but agree with the analysis of
Bishop de Galarreta, who rejoiced, last January, at
hearing a few healthy reactions to the recent synod
on the family: “Now we are starting to see reactions
in the actual, official Church. And deep reactions,

for some do realize that there is a doctrinal problem,
a problem of faith. They realize that there is also a
problem in the conciliar and post-conciliar magisterium. They are starting to ask questions and, this is
very important, they understand that to oppose this
complete rupture with Tradition, they have to react
and necessarily oppose the authorities who diffuse
these errors. So we see cardinals, bishops, priests,
and laymen beginning to react, and in the right way,
even in an excellent way, sometimes very firmly.”30
In this context, the eventuality of a canonical
recognition of the Society, far from marking the
triumph of Tradition or the end of the crisis, could be
a sort of assistance to the Church in danger, threatened as she is by serious internal dangers.31

A New Step?
This question is whether this freedom granted to
Tradition, a freedom under the form of a canonical
recognition, the erection of a world-wide Prelature,
would be beneficial for the Church herself. Would it
be a bomb — a saving electric shock that would allow
Tradition to take back her rights everywhere?— or a
damp firecracker, a way of extinguishing Tradition’s
fighting spirit by trying to stifle it? Faced with such
an alternative, the Superior General of the Society
of St. Pius X plans not to rush anything, but rather
to weigh carefully all the ins and outs of the Roman
propositions, with their practical consequences.
In the beginning of the summer of 2016, Bishop
Fellay called together all the seminary and district superiors to consult, inform, and examine. Is
Tradition solid and disciplined32 enough to continue
the good fight of the Faith without disintegrating
or becoming mired in the conciliar dynamics? Is it
necessary, rather, to clear the path more thoroughly,
and once armed with solid guarantees, advance resolutely in what would be a new and important step?
The ultimate goal remains the return of Tradition,
of the Catholic Faith and life, to the Church and the
world today. For in any case, the canonical recognition of the Society of St. Pius X can never be an end
in itself; it can only be a means in a long and difficult
work of reconquering.
The Press release which Bishop Fellay delivered
on June 29 at Ecône recalled the state of great
confusion within the Church and the needs to return
to the Catholic doctrine along with the denuncia-

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tion of errors. We are living in “this age of darkness
in which the cult of man replaces the worship of God
in society as in the Church.” In this context, if the
Society has the right to obtain a canonical recognition, since it is fully a Catholic work, its priority is
“faithfully to bring forth the light of the bi-millennial
Tradition, which shows the only route to follow.” For
this is needed “the support of a pope who concretely favors the return to Sacred Tradition.” Prayer and
penance are more than ever the order of the day “for
the pope, so that he might have the strength to proclaim Catholic faith and morals in their entirety.”33
Today, just like yesterday, the Society of St. Pius X
and all the works of Tradition, living branches of the
Church of all times, wish to work for the “restoration
of all things in Christ,” without rallying to a conciliar
Church with which they can never collaborate,34 and
without a spirit of rebellion, bitterness, or resentment35 that would make them wander towards the
slopes of schism or sectarianism.36 Allying doctrine
and piety, it is through charity— in which we have
believed37 —that the Faith can triumph.

The Mass and the Immaculate Heart of Mary
We began this study with Pope Paul VI’s analysis
of the self-destruction of the Church in 1968. Four
years later, on June 29, 1972, he tried to identify the
cause: “Through some fissure, the smoke of Satan
has entered into the temple of God. Satan has come
to destroy and dry up the fruits of the Council.” This
fissure is the rupture from Tradition,38 and this was
accomplished by Vatican II, with the best intentions….in the world. On the contrary, “the restoration
of the Church by her Tradition,” so “indispensable
for the salvation of souls,” “can only be brought
about through the extraordinary help of the Holy
Ghost and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin
Mary. It is by prayer and especially the Holy Sacrifice
of the Mass that we shall obtain this renovation that
we so ardently desire.”39
In this perspective, the apparitions of Fatima
are of a burning pertinence. Bishop Fellay recently
mentioned their message yet again.40 In the years
that directly followed the Council, Sister Lucy wrote:
“We must recite the rosary every day. Our Lady
repeated that in all her apparitions, as if to arm us
against these times of diabolical disorientation, so that
we might not be deceived by false doctrines and

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that through prayer, the elevation of our soul to God
might not diminish.”41

1

Paul VI, Speech to the Lombard Seminary, December 7, 1968:
“The Church finds herself in an hour of worry, of self-criticism,
on might even say of self-destruction. As if the Church were
striking herself.” La Chiesa attraversa, oggi, un momento di
inquietudine. Taluni si esercitano nell’autocritica, si direbbe
perfino nell’autodemolizione.

2

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Le coup de maître de Satan, October
13, 1977, Editions Saint-Gabriel, Martigny 1977, p. 57.

3

Romano Amerio, Iota Unum: A Study of Changes in the Catholic
Church in the Twentieth Century, Ch. 32: Civilization and
Secondary Christianity, Angelus Press, 2nd edition, 1996, p. 503.
See also Fr. Alain Lorans, “Le regard de la foi et la leçon des faits”,
XIth Theological Congress of Courrier de Rome, January 6, 20013,
published in Nouvelles de Chrétienté, #139, p. 11.

4

John XXIII, Speech to the Federation of Catholic Universities,
April 1, 1959, in La Documentation catholique, #1302, April 26,
1959, col. 515. See also Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, They Have
Uncrowned Him, fourth part: “A Revolution in Tiara and Cope,”
Angelus Press, 3rd edition, 1994.

5

There are many quotes from speeches by Popes John XXIII and
Paul VI that illustrate this liberal benevolence towards “the world
of these times” in the Acts of the 6th Theological Congress of Si si
no no, Penser Vatican II quarante ans après, Courrier de Rome
Publications, 2004, p. 13 to 44.

6

See annex, Archbishop Lefebvre’s letter to Cardinal Seper, dated
April 13, 1978.

7

Archbishop Lefebvre, handwritten notes, quoted by Fr. JeanMichel Gleize, “Vatican II, l’autorité d’un concile en question,” Vu
de haut #13, Institut universitaire Saint-Pie X, 2006, p. 5.

8

Matt. 24:35; Mark 13:31; Luke 21:33.

9

See Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, Vittorio Messori, The Ratzinger
Report, Ignatius Press, 1986.

10

See Benedict XVI, Speech to the Roman Curia, December 22, 2005,
on “the hermeneutics of reform in continuity.”

11

Benedict XVI, Speech at his meeting with the Roman clergy,
February 14, 2013.

12

Archbishop Guido Pozzo, July 2, 2010, conference to the priests of
the Society of St. Peter in Wigratzbad.

13

In the Modernist system, the truth is no longer defined as the
conformity of the intelligence with reality, but as its conformity
with life, or with any vital phenomenon. In the same way, faith is
no longer the intelligence adhering to the revealed truth, but the
translation of the manifestations of the religious sentiment. See St.
Pius X, Encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis, September 8, 1907, §
13 and 49.

14

The spiritual doctrine behind this attitude is exposed in his June
29, 1982 sermon, in which Archbishop Lefebvre compares the
crisis of the Church to the passion of Christ. See Fr. Alain Lorans,
“L’Eglise au risque de la crise,” in Nouvelles de Chrétienté, #130, p.
11 to 16; Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Marcel Lefebvre, The
Biography, Angelus Press, 2004.

15

“If Rome really wants to give us true autonomy, like we have now
but with our submission—we would like to be submitted to the
Holy Father, and we have always wished for it—...if Rome agrees to
let us try this experiment of Tradition, there will no longer be any

problem.” Quoted by Bishop Tissier de Mallerais, op. cit., p. 550.
Archbishop Lefebvre asked to be allowed to try “the experiment of
Tradition” as early as 1973. See Bp. Tissier, p. 475.
16

Letter from Archbishop Lefebvre to Cardinal Seper, April 13, 1978.

17

Archbishop Lefebvre, Sermon in Zaitzkofen, February 26, 1983,
Fideliter, #33, p. 42.

18

Answer to different topical questions, Econe, February 24, 1977,
in Le coup de maître de Satan, op. cit., p. 48. Six years later, the
founder of the Society of St. Pius X declared: “If I wished to sum
up in a few words our line of conduct . . . , I would say that we have
wished to be neither schismatic, nor heretic, but Catholic.” Sermon
in Ecône, June 29, 1983, Fideliter, #34, p. 8.

19

Letter from Archbishop Lefebvre to Cardinal Ratzinger, April 17,
1985.

20

Without a real and complete exemption from the diocesan bishops,
the majority of whom are won over to the new religion of Vatican
II, we do not see how the future of Tradition could be guaranteed
today. In this domain, history is the teacher of truth, as is shown
by the example of the reform of Cluny, accomplished over 150
years, for which Pope Gregory V granted St. Odilo privileges
adapted to the critical situation of the Church at the time: “Under
pain of anathema, we decree that no bishop, no member of the
priestly order, can enter your venerable convent to consecrate
the church, ordain priests and deacons and celebrate Mass
without having been invited by the abbot, and that your monks
are permitted to receive Holy Orders wherever it shall please you
(Odilo) or your successors.” A bull from Benedict VIII on April 1,
1016, confirmed the work of his predecessors Gregory V (998) and
John XIX (1024), who had completely freed Cluny from episcopal
supervision, as regarded both persons and goods.

21

Later, in 1985, the faithful of the Society were invited to sign
a petition asking: “That the Priestly Society of St. Pius X be
recognized in the Church as a society of pontifical right and
personal prelature.” See Fideliter, #43, 1985, p. 17.

22

Letter from Paul VI to Archbishop Lefebvre, June 29, 1975: “the
authority of the second Vatican Council (…) is no lesser, (it) is even
in some aspects more important than that of Nicaea.”

23

See Archbishop Pozzo, interview with the newspaper La Croix
on April 7, 2016: “The difficulties raised by the SSPX concerning
the Church-State relationship and religious freedom, the practice
of ecumenism and dialogue with non-Christian religions, certain
aspects of the liturgical reform and its concrete application,
remain subject to discussion and clarification but do not constitute
an obstacle to a canonical and juridical recognition of the SSPX.”
Up until now, submission to these Vatican II novelties had been the
indispensable condition for a recognition of the Society of St. Pius
X.

24

Letter from Pope Francis to the president of the Pontifical Council
for the Promulgation of the New Evangelization, September 1,
2015. This ordinary power to hear the faithful’s confessions is to
be maintained after the Jubilee of Mercy, announced Pope Francis
in an interview with Bishop Fellay on April 1, 2016, at the Domus
Sanctae Marthae.

25

Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, March 19,
2016, published April 8, 2016.

26

By subtly granting access to Eucharistic communion for
the divorced and remarried, Pope Francis goes against his
predecessor Pope Soter, for example, who at the time of Emperor
Marcus Aurelius excluded persons in the state of grave sin from
Holy Thursday communion.

27

Paradoxically, precisely because of the general confusion reigning
today, some cardinals and bishops freely voice their disagreement
with the direction of the present pontificate: Cardinal Müller, but

also Cardinal Burke, Cardinal Brandmüller, Bishop Schneider, etc.
28

St. Pius X, Letter Notre Charge apostolique, August 25, 1910,
introduction: “Our Apostolic Mandate requires from Us that We
watch over the purity of the Faith and the integrity of Catholic
discipline. It requires from Us that We protect the faithful from
evil and error; especially so when evil and error are presented
in dynamic language which, concealing vague notions and
ambiguous expressions with emotional and high-sounding words,
is likely to set ablaze the hearts of men in pursuit of ideals which,
whilst attractive, are nonetheless nefarious.”

29

See footnote 24. The Chapter General of the Society, held in
Econe in July 2012, laid down as the first condition in the case of
a canonical recognition the “freedom to keep, transmit and teach
the healthy doctrine of the constant Magisterium of the Church
and of the immutable truth of divine Tradition; freedom to defend,
correct, reprimand even publicly those guilty of the errors or
novelties of Modernism, liberalism, Vatican Council II and their
consequences.”

30

Bishop de Galarreta, conference in Bailly on January 17, 2016,
Nouvelles de Chrétienté, #158, p. 7.

31

When commenting on the pope’s decision to grant an ordinary
jurisdiction to the priests of the Society of St. Pius X for the
ministry of confession, Bishop Fellay used the following image:
“When a fire is raging, everyone understands that those who have
the means to do so must endeavor to put it out, especially if there
is a shortage of firefighters. So it is that through all fifty years of
this terrible crisis that has shaken the Church, particularly the
tragic lack of confessors, our priests have devoted themselves to
the souls of penitents, invoking the case of emergency foreseen
by the Code of Canon Law. As a result of the Pope’s act, during
the Holy Year, we will have ordinary jurisdiction. In the image
I mentioned, this has the effect of giving us the official insignia
of firefighters, whereas such a status was denied us for decades.
In itself, it adds nothing new for the Society, its members, or
its faithful. Yet this ordinary jurisdiction will perhaps reassure
people who are uneasy or others who until now did not dare to
approach us.” Bishop Fellay, Letter to Friends and Benefactors
#85, November 21, 2015.

32

Another aspect of our revolutionary age is that everyone believes
he himself is invested with the defense of the common good or
of all of Tradition, be he a layman or cleric. The proliferation of
articles, blogs, stances and various forms of one-upmanship that
contaminate even the parish bulletins and pulpits is proof enough.
It is obvious that no disunited or undisciplined army has ever won
the slightest victory. In the dialectics between authority and truth,
one must never lose sight of the fact that the authority is for the
truth, and that in order to persuade the former of the rightness of
the traditional reaction, one must not consider it as an enemy to be
shot down, but as a superior to be convinced. A pope, even a bad
pope, remains the Vicar of Christ on earth. And it is as such that he
will have to answer to God.

33

Press Release of the Superior General DICI, 29 juin 2016.

34

By “conciliar Church” we mean the Church born of the Council,
with all its novelties, its language, its practices, its rites and rules,
in a word, the new religion of Vatican II, the ecclesial way of
acting, the new way of practicing and understanding the Catholic
religion. We do not mean another substance or another Church
that would be a substitute for the true Church of Christ, in such a
way that the pope would no longer be His vicar or that he would be
governing something other than the Church founded on Peter of
whom he is the successor. See Dominique Viain, “La Contre-Eglise:
une terminologie commode mais ambigüe,” in Nouvelle revue
Certitudes, October-November-December 2000, #4, p. 54-58.

35

See Archbishop Lefebvre, Declaration November 21, 1974, in Vu de
haut, #13, 2006, p. 9-10.

36

Archbishop Lefebvre often denounced the pitfall that would
consist in “becoming schismatic by abandoning our Holy Father

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the Pope and the hierarchy; those who act thus think that they
themselves are the Church.” Sermon in Ecône, June 29, 1983, loc.
cit., p. 8-9.
37

Credidimus caritati is the episcopal motto of Archbishop
Lefebvre. See I John 4:16.

38

Bishop Tissier de Mallerais, op. cit. p. 468.

39

Archbishop Lefebvre, “La Tradition face à l’œcuménisme libéral,”
Itinéraires #233, introduction, p. 7.

40

See Interview with DICI, March 4, 2016, in Nouvelles de
Chrétienté, #158, p. 21-22. And interview with National Catholic
Register, May 13, 2016, in DICI #336, p. 11: “You have a report of

The Masterstroke of Satan
Satan never ceases to attack Our Lord in His
Mystical Body: the Church. Throughout the course
of History he has employed every means, the latest
and most terrible being the official apostasy of the
civil societies. The secularism of the States was
and is an immense scandal for the souls of citizens.
And by this means he has managed little by little
to secularize many members of the Church and
make them lose the Faith, so much so that the false
principles of the separation of Church and State,
religious liberty, political atheism, and authority as
drawing its source from individuals have invaded
the seminaries, presbyteries, bishoprics, and even
Vatican Council II.
In order to do so, Satan invented key words
that allowed the modern and modernist errors to
penetrate the Council: “liberty” was introduced with
Religious Liberty or Freedom of Religion, “equality”
with Collegiality, which introduces the principles
of democratic egalitarianism into the Church, and
lastly “fraternity,” with Ecumenism that embraces
all heresies and errors and reaches out to all the
enemies of the Church.
Satan’s masterstroke is thus the spread of the
revolutionary principles introduced into the Church
by the Church’s own authority, placing this authority
in a situation of permanent incoherency and contradiction; until this ambivalence is dissipated, the
disasters will continue in the Church. As the liturgy
becomes ambiguous, the priesthood does, too; as
the catechism becomes ambiguous, the Faith, which
can only be maintained in the Truth, evaporates.
The very hierarchy of the Church lives in a permanent ambivalence between the personal authority
received by the sacrament of Holy Orders and the

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Father Fuentes, having talked with Sister Lucy, in which he gives
a dramatic conference [saying it] might be really not necessarily
all the message, or the secret, but the perception Sister Lucia has
of this. And there she speaks of a diabolical disorientation, and of
course that comes from the top. And I think we have that. It’s in
front of us.”
41

Letter to Sr. Maria Teresa da Cunha, April 12, 1970, quoted by Br.
Michel de la Sainte-Trinité, Toute la vérité sur Fatima, volume
III, La Contre-Réforme Catholique, Saint-Parres-lès-Vaudes, 1985,
p. 509. Sr. Lucy spoke often of a “diabolical campaign” and of a
“diabolical disorientation” when she described the situation of the
world and the Church.

Mission of Peter or the Bishop, and the democratic
principles.
We have to admit that the trick has been well
played and that Satan’s lie has worked marvelously.
The Church is going to destroy herself out of obedience. The Church is going to convert to the heretic,
Jewish, or pagan world out of obedience, through
an equivocal liturgy, an ambiguous catechism full of
omissions, and new institutions based on the democratic principles. (Archbishop Lefebvre, Le coup de
maître de Satan, p. 5-6.)

Letter from Archbishop Lefebvre to Cardinal Seper
(April 13, 1978)
The problem at the root of our perseverance in
Tradition, in spite of orders from Rome to abandon
it, is the grave and profound change in the relations
of the Church with the world.
Our Lord and the Church after Him have related
themselves to the world in a very precise way. The
world has to be converted and baptized, and submit
to the gentle Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ. That
is the one and only way to salvation. “Go teach all
nations…” that is clear. Apostles must be sent to all
nations so that they become Catholics and accept
the Reign of Our Lord.
But in the world there are forces at enmity with
Our Lord and His Reign. Satan and all the auxiliaries
of Satan, conscious and unconscious, refuse that
Reign, that road to salvation, and they fight for the
destruction of the Church.
Hence, the Church, with her divine Founder, is
engaged in a gigantic struggle. All means have been
and are being used by Satan for his triumph.
One of the latest and most effective stratagems

is to destroy the fighting spirit of the Church by persuading her that she has no more enemies, so she
must lay down her arms and enter into a dialogue of
peace and understanding.
That sham truce will allow the enemy to penetrate
everywhere with ease and to corrupt the opposing
forces.
That truce is Liberal Ecumenism, a diabolical
instrument for the auto-destruction of the Church.
That liberal Ecumenism will demand the neutralization of weapons, which are the Liturgy with the
Sacrifice of the Mass, the Sacraments, the Breviary,
the liturgical feasts, and the neutralization and
then the closing of Seminaries—there is no longer a
need of fighters when there is no fight. Ecumenism
in education means theological research—dogmas
open to doubt.
It means also pluralism applied to Catholic
States, so that they are suppressed and become
Ecumenical States.
It means that the monasteries and the religious
societies are stopped from fighting, they who were
the vanguard. That amounts to a sentence of death.
To that devilish undertaking begun by the
Council, especially in the Documents on “NonChristian Religions” (Nostra Aetate), “the Church
in the Modern World” (Gaudium et Spes), and
“Religious Liberty” (Dignitatis humanae), and continued incessantly since the Council, we offer a flat
refusal. We will not become Liberal Ecumenists,
betraying the cause of the Reign of Our Lord and the
cause of the Church: we wish to remain Catholics.
Who is the instigator of that false ecumenism in
the Church? Who is (or who are) answerable for it?
We prefer not to know. God knows.
They can lay us under as many interdicts and
censures as they like, but we mean, with the grace
of God and the help of the Blessed Virgin, to remain
in the Catholic faith, and we refuse to collaborate in
the destruction of the Church.
We ask for something very simple and very
legitimate: recognition that the Church of all time,
the Church of our childhood, has the right to continue. It is a right based on Scripture, Tradition, the
Magisterium of the Church, and the whole history of
the Church.

83

706 pp. – Flexible imitation leather cover with gold foil stamping and rounded corners – Sewn binding – 2 Ribbons – STK# 8680 – $39.95

A Young Catholic’s Daily Missal

The Young Catholic’s Daily Missal is designed to open up the spiritual treasures of the Mass for young Catholics
from the time of their First Communion up through their preteen years. This missal conforms to the rubrics
and norms of the 1962 Missale Romanum and includes the full Ordinary of the Mass in Latin and English; the
Masses for Sundays and Holydays in English with paraphrases of the Propers. For all the other days of the year
there are explanations, printed in smaller type, of the Introit, Epistle and Gospel. These, along with the Common of Saints, make this missal ideal for daily use. Finally, this missal contains morning and evening prayers;
instructions on the meaning of the Mass; and an array of traditional devotions. Illustrated throughout.

42

ORDINARY OF THE MASS

INTROIT

43

280

PROPeR OF The SeASON

FIRST SUNDAy OF LeNT

281

LITANy OF The hOLy NAMe

must love your enemies and pray for those who do
you harm. Only then will you be the children of God;
for you will do as God does. You know that God does
good even to sinners. God makes His sun shine upon
the good and the bad. Be good like the good God.

SATURDAY AFTER ASH WEDNESDAY

INTROIT

THE PRIEST KISSES THE ALTAR

M

y God, the Priest walks up the steps
to the altar, and kisses it with respect.
I cannot do that; but yet I should like to
assist him. So while he prays aloud and
in Latin, I will say the very same thing to
myself in English. My God, Thou hast pardoned the Priest his sins; pardon me mine,
because I am sorry that I ever did them.
I know that I do not deserve Thy pardon; for I always begin again to offend
Thee. Do not think of me, but of the
Saints whose relics are inside the altar,
and of all the Saints in glory. For their
sakes pardon me all my sins.

Read this lntroit, if you have not one marked in your little
missal. It belongs to the feast of the Sacred Heart.

T

he divine Heart of Jesus loves us; He

has delivered us from the sin that kills
the souls, and He gives us His graces.
You must not think any more of yourself: think of Him Who is about to come
as a victim on the altar.
If you wish God to be very much
pleased with you, promise Him that you
will do everything as well as you can; so
that when He comes you may be able to
say to Him: My God, I intend to work for
Thee, in order to please Thee. Whatever I
do will be done for Thee. My Jesus, I give
Thee this day.

I NTROIT. God has heard Me and has had pity on
Me, says Jesus, upon the cross. With Jesus let us say:
I thank Thee, O God, because Thou hast delivered
me from my enemies.
COLLeCT. O God, hear our prayer, and help us
to keep all the days of fasting well, by making many
sacrifices, to cure our soul made sick by sin.
ePISTLe. If you are good to your neighbor, if you
are charitable, says Isaias, God will reward you. He
brought Jesus back to life after He was dead, and
placed Him in heaven; He will give life to your soul,
and give you heaven, if you do all you should to honor God, specially on Sundays.
Tract of Ash Wednesday, p. 277.

G OSPeL . It was dark at night; the Apostles were
in a boat upon the lake, and had great difficulty in
rowing, for the wind was high. Jesus came to them,
walking upon the water, when it was broad daylight. The Apostles thought they saw a ghost and
were afraid. He stepped into the boat and the wind
dropped. When they came ashore, people brought
the sick to Him and He healed them. Always have
confidence in Jesus, and He will always help you.

FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT
I N the city of Rome the Mass is said today in the
church of Saint John Lateran. The patrons of this
church are Jesus the Savior and Saint John the Baptist. Jesus, who was baptized by Saint John saves us

through baptism. And Lent is to prepare those who
are not yet Christians for the sacrament of baptism
after the font is blessed on Holy Saturday; and also
Christians for their confession, through which Jesus
saves souls that have fallen into great sins after their
baptism.

I NTROIT. With Jesus in the desert we
pray to God, for He has promised to help
us if we say our prayers well.
PRAyeRS. O God, every year we begin
the holy season of Lent on this day as the
Church wishes us to do. Grant that we
may be really good, and make our little
sacrifices generously.
ePISTLe. Saint Paul repeats what the
prophet Isaias said: Now is the right time
to do penance; do not let the chance slip
away. Now is the right time to correct our

VARIOUS DEVOTIONS
DEVOTIONS TO OUR LORD
Litany of the Holy Name

L ORD, have mercy on us.
Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us.
Jesus, hear us.
Jesus, graciously hear us.
God the Father of heaven, have mercy on
us.
God, the Son, Redeemer of the world,
God the Holy Ghost,
Holy Trinity, one God,
Jesus, Son of the living God,
662

663

Jesus, splendor of the Father, have mercy
on us.
Jesus, brightness of eternal light,
Jesus, King of glory,
Jesus, sun of justice,
Jesus, Son of the Virgin Mary,
Jesus, most lovable,
Jesus, most admirable,
Jesus, mighty God,
Jesus, Father of the world to come,
Jesus, Angel of great counsel,
Jesus, most powerful,
Jesus, most patient,
Jesus, most obedient,
Jesus, meek and humble of heart,
Jesus, lover of chastity,
Jesus, lover of us,
Jesus, God of peace,
Jesus, author of life,
Jesus, example of virtues,
Jesus, zealous lover of souls,
Jesus, our God,
Jesus, our refuge,
Jesus, Father of the poor,
Jesus, treasure of the faithful,
Jesus, Good Shepherd,
Jesus, true light,
Jesus, eternal wisdom,
Jesus, infinite goodness,
Jesus, our way and our life,

13-month calendar – 12" x 12" – STK# CAL2017Q – $12.95

The Life of Christ
Through the Liturgical Year

P
Sunday

The Life, Death, Resurrection, and Heavenly Glory of Our Lord
Jesus Christ is the central focus of every liturgical year. And
so it is fitting that the 2017 Liturgical Calendar should assist
the faithful in following the yearly liturgical cycle through some
of Christendom’s most splendid depictions of Christ’s earthly

ilate therefore said to him: Art thou a king then? Jesus answered: Thou sayest that I
am a king. For this was I born, and for this came I into the world; that I should give
testimony to the truth. Every one that is of the truth, heareth my voice. (Jn. 18:37)

Tuesday

Monday

2

3

4

5

6

7

Seventeenth Sunday
after Pentecost–G (II)

The Holy Guardian Angels–W (III)

St. Therese of the Child Jesus
Virgin–W (III)

St. Francis of Assisi
Confessor–W (III)

Ferial–G (IV)
St. Placid & Companions
Martyrs–R (Comm.)

First Friday
St. Bruno
Confessor–W (III)

First Saturday
Blessed Virgin Mary
of the Rosary–W (II)
St. Mark I
Pope, Confessor–W (Comm.)

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

Eighteenth Sunday
after Pentecost–G (II)
St. Bridget of Sweden, Widow

St. John Leonard
Confessor–W (III)
Sts. Denis, Rusticus & Eleutherius
Martyrs–R (Comm.)

St. Francis Borgia
Confessor–W (III)

The Maternity of the
Blessed Virgin Mary–W (II)

Ferial–G (IV)

St. Edward, King,
Confessor–W (III)

St. Callistus I
Pope, Martyr–R (III)

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

Nineteenth Sunday
after Pentecost–G (II)
St. Teresa of Avila, Virgin

St. Hedwig
Widow–W (III)

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
Virgin–W (III)

St. Luke
Evangelist–R (II)

St. Peter of Alcantara
Confessor–W (III)

St. John Cantius
Confessor–W (III)

Our Lady on Saturdays–W (IV)
St. Hilarion
Abbot–W (Comm.)
St. Ursula & Companions
Virgins, Martyrs–R (Comm.)

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

Twentieth Sunday
after Pentecost–G (II)

St. Anthony Mary Claret
Bishop, Confessor–W (III)

St. Raphael the Archangel–W (III)

St. Isidore the Farmer
Confessor–W (III)
Ferial–G (Comm.)
Sts. Chrysanthus & Daria
Martyrs–R (Comm.)

Ferial–G (IV)
St. Evaristus
Pope, Martyr–R (Comm.)

Ferial–G (IV)

Sts. Simon & Jude
Apostles–R (II)

29

30

31

In USA:

of meditation throughout each month.

Obligatory day
of fast and abstinence.
Traditional day
of abstinence.
Traditional day
of fast and abstinence.

ministry and heavenly reign. These images are captioned by
appropriate Scriptural quotations which can serve as sources

Saturday

Friday

Thursday

Wednesday

1

Traditional day of fast
and partial abstinence.

THE FEAST OF
CHRIST THE KING–W (I)

S M T W T

F S
1

2

3

8

9

4

5

6

7

Ferial–G (IV)

Ferial–G (IV)

September 2017

November 2017
S M T W T
5

6

7

F S

1

2

3

8

9

10 11

4

10 11 12 13 14 15 16

12 13 14 15 16 17 18

17 18 19 20 21 22 23

19 20 21 22 23 24 25

24 25 26 27 28 29 30

26 27 28 29 30

Obligatory day of
abstinence. Traditional
day of fast.

October

Mosaic 8th century, Apse of Cathedral of Aachen, Germany

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The
Last
Word
Dear readers,
Religious institutes and the State
“And the Lord said to Ananias: Go thy way; for this man is to me a vessel of election, to
carry my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel” (Acts. 9:15).
St. Paul’s mission is a beautiful description of what religious institutes have done over
the last twenty centuries all over the world. “To carry His Name,” to bring the knowledge
and the love of Christ to all nations, first by their example, but also by the multiplicity of
works that contemplative and active Orders excel in. We can never underestimate the role
of these consecrated souls for the civil society. Here is how Pope Leo XIII described it:
“They have had the merit to form and embellish the minds by the teaching of sacred
and profane sciences and to increase by brilliant and lasting works the patrimony of fine
arts. While their doctors illustrated the universities by the depth and extension of their
knowledge, while their houses became the refuge of divine and human knowledge and,
in the shipwreck of civilization, saved of an assured ruin the masterpieces of ancient wisdom, many other religious were penetrating inhospitable regions, marshlands or impenetrable forests, and drying out them, clearing them, braving all fatigues and all perils. They
cultivated souls at the same time as the soil, they brought around their monasteries and
in the shadow of the Cross populations which became villages or flourishing cities, governed with meekness, where agriculture and industries sprang out” (Dec. 23, 1900).
Contrary to the allegations of uselessness and harmfulness, religious, even the contemplatives, have rendered and still render multiple services to the civil society. Monks
have saved Europe from barbary, military orders have defended it, at all times religious
have been the leaven of true civilization. In the State, they raise the morality, order, and
prosperity, especially by works of education of charity. They have truly contributed to the
prestige of Christian Nations.
When we pray for vocations, we are truly praying for the Social Kingship of Christ.
Oremus! “Mitte, Domine, operarios in messem tuam!—Send, Lord, workers into Thy
harvest!”
Fr. Daniel Couture

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
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Authentic spiritual life, the sacraments, and the traditional liturgy are its
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