Pope Weasel And The Just Aspiration Of Communism

 

Pope Weasel regaled us – during a recent Angelus in front of the usual three dozen curious who did not want to spend for Ripley’s Believe It Or Not – with a bit of his wisdom:

In addition, in these weeks we are witnessing numerous popular protests all over the world – in many parts – expressing the growing unease of civil society in the face of particularly critical political and social situations. While I urge the demonstrators to present their demands peacefully, without giving in to the temptation of aggression and violence, I appeal to all those with public and governmental responsibilities to listen to the voice of their fellow citizens and to meet their just aspirations, ensuring full respect for human rights and civil liberties

This is, at the same time, ambiguous and subversive, in the same way as Francis generally is.

On the one hand, Francis restricts his appeal to the  just aspirations of the bunch of communists, anarchists, paedophiles, and others who are now manifesting. In theory, they could have no just aspirations (being a bunch of communists, anarchists etc.) at all, and everybody could be happy.

In practice, it is obvious that this is, for as far as a man like Francis would dare to go, an endorsement of the victimhood so much in fashion nowadays among the above mentioned categories.

“I am not saying that being a Communist is officially good”, Francis implies, “but please listen, listen, listen to them!” In this, there is an implicit judgment that white-on-black racism is still a factor (fake news), that the police needs to be reorganised (more fake news), and that Capitalism has somethign fundamentally wrong in itself (fakest news of all).

By the bye, I am awaiting Francis’ strong, definitive condemnation of “cuties”.

Will I get it?

Will I?

 

 

 

 

Black Girls’ Lives Matter, Or: Enemies Of Christ, Child-Killing Thugs Strike Again

A car approaches a place where it is not supposed to be. Two armed thugs approach the vehicle, inside which are a mother and her eight years old daughter. Some discussion ensues. Both thugs open fire, killing the girl.

You would think this is something that could happen in some war-thorn, disease-ridden, savage African Shithole Country. Actually, it happened in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, in the year 2020, which will likely be remembered as a year of total madness.

Eight years old girl dies for peeving a thug. Thugs with IQs in the low thirties go around undisturbed, unchallenged by a police made impotent by opportunism and political correctness. This is the reality of a big Democrat-run city as I write this. Power-hungry Dems are destroying every big city in the United States. Very sad but, alas, Democracy at work.

The irony is cruel, but it must be noticed: those who wanted to eliminate police wanted to create, from a start, a Thug’s Paradise, where criminals reign supreme and are police, prosecutor, judge and jury. It made sense for the criminals, but it shows how stupid all others were, and still are.

A lot of people have the blood of this little girl on their hands. The Mayor of Atlanta joined the attacks on the police in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, possibly thinking that this despicable move would open her the doors to the Presidential Ticket (vagina=check; dark skin=check; insanely woke=check; so yes, she was in with a chance). She has to answer for the looting and the murder that followed her criminal inaction.

But it not only the Mayor. All those woke idiots who have cheered the disorders are morally responsible for the violence they have contributed to unleash. This savage movement would have never had any traction, would never have gone anywhere, without the support of a multitude of dumb do-gooders. They have been, and still are, the enablers of thugs.

Black Lives Matter is a subversive organisation, in enmity with Christ, bent on destroying Christian Civilisation as we know it.

At this point, whoever does not see the crude, shocking facts on the ground is a part of the problem, an accomplice of thuggery, and an enemy of Christ.

Ah, I almost forgot: the two people killed in the CHAZ, the more than a dozen people killed in Chicago and New York this past long weekend, and the poor girl were all…. Blacks.

If these Anarcho-Communist, subversive thugs really intended to protect Black lives, they would do exactly the contrary of what they are doing now. They would call for more funding for police, more law and order, more severity in the prosecution of criminals.

Your average plantation owner in the South, circa 1845, cared for his slaves infinitely more than this gang of thugs. Let that sink in.

But hey: check your privilege, Mundabor, White boy….

Make Communism (And Pope Francis) History

100 years ago, a Communist organisation took control of a Country (and of a huge one at that) for basically the first time in history as the Parisian “Commune” can certainly not be counted as seizing control of a Country.

Communism is – like his bastard little brother, Socialism – the fruit of a godless mentality that does not see reality for what it is – the fruit of the Fall, with all its attending problems – but, rather, for what it should become if the toy called planet earth were, so to speak, repaired and made to work as it always should have. This is the thinking of children, and of godless adults.

Inequality is not a bug, it is a feature. People having the most varied inclinations and the widest differences of willingness, intelligence, resilience, and appetite for risk, it must follow that they will range – in a completely sinless, utterly justified way – on an extremely long staircase concerning their degree of security, prosperity and quality of life.

Poverty – which is the aspect of inequality leftists cry about the most, though I am pretty sure few of them have ever experienced it – is also, as Our Lord taught us, always going to be with us. It must be so, because poverty teaches humility, encourages to prayer, and helps look heavenwards in all one's endeavour; whilst in some circumstances also being the deserved consequence of laziness, profligacy, entitlement mentality, and general wrong thinking.

War is, also, the result of the Fall. It is childish – nay: it is outright stupid – to think that bad guys will disappear from the earth only because nations gather together in a forum that is nothing more but the collection of all rubbish regimes on the planet. The bad guy will never be “history”, and there will always be need of good guys ready to fight and die to stop him.

You can't “make poverty history”. You can't put an end to wars. As Communism is on its way to becoming history at least as an ideology able to run entire Countries – Socialism will possibly always be with us, because stupidity will – poverty has, unsurprisingly for every Catholic, not only remained but it has been generously multiplied by those same people who claimed they would put an end to it. Sanity wins in the end, albeit sometimes at the price of countless millions of victims.

We, the smart set, do not try to make poverty history. We work towards making Communism history. And with Communism, we want to throw in the rubbish bin of history all that nonsense about inequality, “war no more”, and all the thinking that comes from forgetting God. We want, most of all, purge Catholicism from this cancer.

Make Pope Francis history.

Poverty, war, and godless people will always be with us.

M

 

Inequality, Francis And God

Hhhmmm... Who is that guy?

 

 

The Evil Clown unceasing complains about social inequalities. It might be good to give him a much-needed lesson in basic Christianity.

There is no “equality” in Paradise. Even saints are very different to each other in their degree of saintliness. They consequently enjoy the Beatific Vision in different ways according to the spiritual condition in which they were when they died; a condition that cannot be changed after death. Where the tree falls, there it remains.

Yes, Jorge dear: there are saints who are “more saints” and saints who are “less saints” in Paradise, because God wants it so. God is, as you should know, not “egalitarian” at all.

If, therefore, it is established that infinite goods like the Beatific Vision are given in different measure to different people, how can it be of any real relevance that the infinitely less important – and, sub specie aeternitatis, infinitely unimportant – material goods are allotted to us in extremely different ways?

You would think Francis would know this, and in fact I am entirely sure that he does. The problem is that he does not believe it. Only one who does not believe in heaven and hell, only one who does not believe in God can think that the most important thing in life is to provide for “equality” of any sort. Mind, even an Atheist can disagree with this; but, importantly, no one who believes in God can agree with it.

Francis obsession with inequality is brutal evidence of his complete lack of faith in God, who pushes and decrees inequality in matters if infinite value. Egalitarianism is sheer atheism. Communism is just a variation of it.

This Pope is an enemy of the Faith. He despises it possibly more than Marx and Engels did, then I wonder whether Marx and Engels themselves went around unceasingly berating, insulting, despising pious Chritians or pious Catholics.

This Pope is utter and complete rubbish. He is Satan's Number One Tool (and a tool he certainly is).

It is necessary that every Catholic interested in his salvation considers him pure poison and a daily danger to his and his beloved ones' salvation. The man is, being Pope, worse poison than Marx and Engels.

Inequality is in everything: our looks, our brains, our finances, our graces.

God wants it so.

What a stupid, petty, faithless, communist Pope we have.

M

 

Evil, Genocidal Communist Bastard Undeservedly Dies In His Bed And Meets His Maker. Catholics Say A Prayer For His Soul.

 

The news of the death of one of the most despicable bastards ever to disgrace the face of the disgraceful XX Century (and a part of the XXI) reached me this morning. Suddenly, it was clear why the air seemed somewhat cleaner and fresher.

I have read somewhere the death toll of this genocidal son of a Communist whore ranges anywhere between around 35,000 and around 140,000, with a more likely scenario anywhere in the middle Seventy Thousand. It’s a lot of people for a Country like Cuba. Actually, it would be a lot of people for a Country like China.

As the tributes to the Evil Communist Bastard pour in (our own Commie in Chief, Jeremy Corbyn, has just vomited his own praise) I think it is very fitting to remind every Catholic of a brutal truth of life: when a pig dies it does not become a lamb. It becomes pork.

 Fidel Castro was an evil man by every imaginable standard, and he was an evil man to the very end. There is no trace in his public interventions (which continued to appear, sporadically, almost to his very end) that he saw the light, though he did not hesitate in taking Catholicism hostage for his own ends (like another man who amply deserves the same adjectives in the title, without “genocidal”). The probability that Satan had a special Welcome Committee for his new guest is very high.

We Catholics do not forget, not even on this day – least of all on this day – the dastadly acts of the bastard. We do not indulge in effeminate “forgive and forget”. We counter react to the praises that will be poured on the Bastard from all over the planet. We call a pig a pig, and a dead pig pork. We don’t shut up just because the pork has finally gone to his judgment. We know that, it life were fair, Fidel Castro would have been ignominiously executed a long time ago, instead of dying in his bed. 

Still, as Catholics we know that even the soul of an evil bastard like Fidel Castro has infinite value. We know that the Lord (antecedently) desired the salvation of even the likes of him. We know that his poor Guardian Angel made every attempt, to the very end, to save his soul.

We know – and, as Catholics, we must hope for him – that God’s Mercy can be tapped on until the very end; the thought that this evil bastard might have repented in the end and merited Purgatory should inspire in us a sentiment of hope, and should make us rejoice. It should, also, be for us a reason for moderate optimism, letting us reflect that if God pleased to save such a one the probabilities for us, average wretched sinners, might be a tad better than we thought.

One Castro dealt with, one to go.

One day, every bastard must die.

M 

 

 

 

 

 

The Caricature That Says It All

Pope Commie

 

“It it has been said many times and my response has always been that, if anything, it is the communists who think like Christians”.

Please read this again before going on. Take a moment to fully understand the scale of blasphemous subversion that is going on here. Then, you might recite a Prayer to St Michael the Archangel to counter the evil that is being spread on the planet.   

The Evil Clown has now officially endorsed Communism and, at this point, I do not think that there is any insult in the vocabulary that would not be appropriate for this despicable man. 

The millionth scandal of this utterly satanical Pontificate happened on occasion of just another interview with Eugenio Scalfari (the old, anticlerical atheist who has found in the Evil Clown an ideal fifth column to attack the Church and the faith). Please spare me the “Scalfari is old” mantra. Scalfari is very alert, and very smart. The Pope is stupid, but still his willing accomplice.

As always happened in the past, do not expect any correction from Francis.

It is, in a way, refreshing that such interviews happen. Francis has not become a Communist now; he has always been one. However, once become a Pope he has managed to avoid being too explicit about that. The fact is, he has noticed a long time ago that he can get away with pretty much everything. He has, therefore, no incentive whatsoever to hold his damn tongue. I am sure he enjoys the confusion he has once again spread among Catholics (those who still look to him as to a spiritual man and moral guide, and I pity and despise them), and smiles together with his buddy Scalfari at the new kick right in the backside of those dumb enough to give credence to what he says. But the fact is, the more he indulges in his petty desire to speak out his mind, abandoning every prudence, the more he helps people with a shred of sense left in them to understand what an evil man and what a menace for Christianity he is. And this is what is happening here: a petty old man finds himself increasingly less able to resist the temptation of shouting to the world what he really thinks, sure of impunity in this world and clearly not believing in the next.  

Francis is a communist. He has always been. He will very probably die one.

When a Communist is put at the head of Christianity what do you expect him to do? He will say that Communists are the ones with the authentic Christian thinking.

Makes sense. If you are a Commie.    

M

Francis America Visit: 10 Things To Know And Share

Who am I to judge, you damned Catholics?

Why is Francis flying to another Continent?

In order to preach to others not to cause CO2 emissions with things like, erm, flying. He also wants to promote his favourite political agenda: Peronism.

Flying over an ocean with his entire entourage. Isn't this hypocritical?

Yes, it is. But Francis lives in a shame-free zone in which reason, coherence, or even basic sense of decency are not allowed to enter. And he also is, let us say it, rather stupid.

Why did Francis also visit Cuba?

Officially, because it's a Catholic Country. Unofficially, in order to boost the local Communist regime, which persecuted Catholics and destroyed everything than could be destroyed for more than half a century. But they hate Capitalism, like him.

But is a Pope not supposed to be critical of Communism?

A normal Pope, yes. A faithless Peronist who chose religious life in order to scrounge a comfortable and privileged existence, no.

What else did Pope Francis do in Cuba?

He talked, as always, a lot of nonsense. He went so far as to say that it is good that there is dissent and division within the Church. The usual rubbish, on steroids.

Why would he say that?

Because he is evil and, as already stated, stupid to boot. He wants to undermine Church teaching with his Modernist or outright secular rubbish, but being the ass he is he can't go at it with any subtlety. This is why nowadays even big traditional outlets mock him.

What will Francis do in the United States?

Officially, he will take part in some World Catholic gathering or other, of the kind which makes stupid girls of stupid parents pregnant. Unofficially, he clearly wants to boost Obama's socialist, environ-mentalist and homosexualist agenda. It is his agenda, too, so it makes sense.

Why do you say that?

Because of the rubbish the man has been producing from his Peronist mouth since records began. There is truly no reason to believe he will change his tune now. Mind, he will hint at a Catholic thing or two. This will appease the Pollyannas and delight the assorted groupies.

What else do I need to know?

He will attend a reception at which Obama has invited all sorts of perverts, dissenters, and outright enemies of the Church. Of course he could have prevented this, but he clearly didn't. He wants to spread his own anti-Gospel.

Will it work?

No, it will not work. He couldn't even fill the hotel rooms, no matter how cheap. People are starting to see through him. The novelty effect has disappeared, and he now looks like yesteryear's reality show hero.

M

 

Just Sayin’

I was thinking…

Perhaps I should seize a middle-sized Country with violence.

Have tens of thousand executed.

Persecute the Church.

Deprive everyone of everything they have.

Destroy the economy to the ground.

…….

…….

…….

Then, Francis would like me, and praise me as much as he can.

M

Stellar Father Guarnizo On Communism, Socialism And Christianity

What follows is a contribution of astonishing clarity – almost unknown-of among V II prelates, particularly now that they are fully in the thrall of the “new humbleness” – of Father Guarnizo on Christianity, Socialism and Communism.

I personally think that he overvalues the danger of Communism per se, but there is no doubt in my mind that he is absolutely spot on on the devastating effect Socialism is having not on ly on European societies – and increasingly more on the US American one – but in misleading too many Catholics, which are in turn indoctrinated to the point they can’t even see authentic Christianity anymore.

I also note Father Guarnizo is now in the diocese of Moscow. You will remember Father Guarnizo is the poor chap stigmatised by Cardinal Wuerl for being a Catholic priest; a Cardinal, by the way, whose career is marching on undisturbed.

There is no doubt Wuerl is one who knows what he must do to have a great career and a quiet life.

Father Guarnizo, on the other hand, seems to me one who knows how to go straight to Heaven.

Please, Lord, more like him…

Emphases and parts within square brackets mine.

Mundabor

————————————————————————————————————–

On Christianity, Socialism and Communism

By Rev. Marcel Guarnizo

February 5, 2014

There has been much discussion in recent weeks over the debt of Christianity to—and its compatibility with —the ideas and praxis of the socialist revolution, and even of communism. Many, even in the Catholic Church, believe that we share some of the ideals of the socialist revolution because it seems to them that communism, socialism and Christianity are for the poor. In addition to this most unfortunate error, the opposite fallacy has also been made popular in the minds of many, namely that capitalists and advocates of a free market economy, hate the poor.

But the historical record of communism tells an entirely different story.  I have worked with the countries of the former Soviet Union for over 20 years, and I have seen what communism does to populations and nations. The scourge of the socialist revolution around the world gave us 6 million people killed by artificial famines in Ukraine and, as documented by The Black Book of Communism, 20 million victims in the U.S.S.R., 65 million in China, a million in Vietnam, 2 million in North Korea, another 2 million in Cambodia, a million more in the rest of Eastern Europe, 150,000 in Latin America, 1.7 million in Africa, 1.5 million in Afghanistan and through the international Communist movement and related parties about 100,000 more victims in various nations.  This is a body count that reaches to 100 million victims worldwide. Communism completely destroyed the economy, social fabric, and political culture of dozens of nations. It hollowed out the intelligentsia, ruined every economy where the seed of socialism fully “bloomed,” and abrogated fundamental rights and individual freedoms of the nations it subjugated.  Clearly the Judeo-Christian commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” is not among the doctrinal teachings of communism and the socialist revolution. It is hard to believe that the socialist revolution—unlike Nazism—still finds promoters and defenders in the West.

The compatibility of Christianity and its legitimate concern for the poor owes nothing to the violent and inhuman regimes created by the socialist revolution. No system in human history has produced more poverty and misery than communism.

No greater foe has the Church ever encountered, than the communist revolution. During the 20th century, hundreds of thousands of religious and priests were sent to forced labor camps or simply executed. Five year plans to abolish religion were implemented and no true believer was ever safe in such nations. What social doctrine of the Church was ever derived from such madness? Communism and the socialist revolution are not only the antithesis of Christianity. They are also incompatible with free, just, and democratic societies.

The case against the “wonders” of the socialist revolution can be put to rest by simply reminding people that brick and mortar walls, guarded by armed soldiers, were necessary to keep people from fleeing the manmade paradise of “social equality” created by communists. As Milton Friedman pointed out, the “…strongest proof of the failure of socialism is the fall of the Berlin Wall.”

Neither is a complex apologia required to explain why there is no substantial difference between socialism and communism. Communism, as American writer Whittaker Chambers documented, is nothing more than socialism with claws. Theoretically the two systems share the same ideals and philosophical framework. Communism simply takes socialism to its logical, final consequences.

The difference between the two was captured well by a joke I once read.  Communists will simply shoot you in the head, but the socialists will make you suffer for a lifetime.

To mount a case against the socialist and the communist would seem completely unnecessary given the historical record. But it is necessary, because, as we see, communism’s ideology continues to ensnare the minds of the West and many of its leaders. Perhaps the statement of Whittaker Chambers, when he decided to defect from his service to the Soviet Union, that he had chosen to join, “… the losing side” is not altogether settled. Many think the fall of the Soviet Union proved Chambers wrong, but I submit that Chambers understood, perhaps more clearly than most, the lasting and insidious nature of the socialist revolution in the West. It seems to me, that the West’s great partial victory against the Soviet Union is far from being final. Though the Soviet Empire has fallen, the West remains in an equally powerful cultural battle, which the architects of the socialist revolution themselves anticipated.

Gramsci’s Tactic: Cultural Hegemony

The socialist revolution in the West has been greatly influenced by the tactics of the Italian communist Antonio Gramsci. Writing in the 1930s, Gramsci recognized that the culture of the West, and in particular, the Catholic Church, stood as robust obstacles to a communist economic and political takeover in Europe. Gramsci proposed that a takeover of the cultural institutions—the achievement of cultural hegemony—was the necessary first step to the eventual takeover of the political and economic structures of a free society.

This strategy meant that socialists should tirelessly work on the takeover over of universities and education, media, churches, and other cultural intermediary structures of the free world. He thought that the eroding of the cultural foundations would weaken a free society’s natural defenses and this would open the path for the economic and political aims of the socialist revolution.

I would submit that the “cultural hegemony” of the socialist revolution is increasing in the West and at an alarming pace. The increasing loss of ground in our culture to socialism and its allies is creating a growing threat to the political and economic freedoms of America and Western democracies.

Therefore, it seems to me, the battle between the free world and the socialist revolution is far from settled.  The errors of communism are legion, and the West should not slumber, as the battle is far from over.

The Errors of Communism

1. 1.   The Error Concerning the Nature of Man

Communism starts not with an economic error but an anthropological one. The economic and political effects of the communist system are but a symptom of a previous error, an error about the nature of man.

The French 19th century political economist and writer Frédéric Bastiat clearly makes the point. Socialism, Bastiat argued, sees man as mere raw material, to be disposed of, to be molded by the “all knowing,” state. In his book, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism, economist Friedrich von Hayek launches a similar attack on the socialists and their “omniscient state.”  Hayek demonstrated the impotence of the socialist to run an economy

Man is just matter: This materialist vision of man is the first and most profound error of the socialist revolution. The materialist vision of man is what justifies the communists’ insistence that they may legitimately do whatever it takes to achieve their utopia. We must be transformed by the state, into its image and likeness.

This materialist view disregards therefore the true dignity of man and the true nature of the human person—his rationality and free will. The artificial social orders engineered by socialists are completely devoid of a proper understanding of man and the kind of being that he is.

Writes Bastiat, they “… start with an idea that society is contrary to nature; devise contrivances to which humanity can be subjected; lose sight of the fact that humanity has its motive force within itself; consider men as base raw materials; propose to impart to them movement and will, feeling, and life; set oneself apart, immeasurably above the human race—these are the common practices of the social planners. The plans differ; the planners are all alike.”

Socialism and communism are fundamentally contrary to Christianity, for no Christian can hold that man is mere matter. Materialism is the exact opposite of the most basic philosophical and theological assertion of Christianity, namely that man is body and spirit.

Whittaker Chambers identified the essence of the radical revolutionary, the communist, the socialist, the radical progressive, in one key word: change. Writes Chambers, “The revolutionary heart of Communism … is a simple statement of Karl Marx… it is necessary to change the world…The tie that binds them across the frontiers of nations, across barriers of language and differences of class and education, in defiance of religion, morality, truth, law, honor, the weakness of the body and the irresolutions of the mind, even unto death, is a simple conviction: It is necessary to change the world.”

1. 2.   The Error Concerning Man’s Relation to the State

The first fundamental error leads to the second fatal error: Socialism perverts the proper relation between man and the state.

If man is just matter that needs to be molded and transformed to the will of the state (the social engineer), then indeed man is entirely subservient to the state. In this view, man is born to serve the state, from cradle to grave. Catholic social doctrine holds to the precisely opposite vision: the state exists to serve man

1. 3.   The Error Concerning Private Property

Communism, even for the amateur reader of its doctrine, considers private property a great evil in society.  Since that is the theory, dispossessing millions of people of their land and putting to death untold millions more, for simply having more than others, has been the common practice of communist regimes.

The Catholic Church has always held private property to be a great good in society and has defended man’s right to private ownership as fundamentally good and compatible with man’s nature, freedom, and dignity. The Church also recognizes private property as a right absolutely necessary for the proper order and functioning of free societies. Respect for one’s neighbor’s private property rights is foundational to the Judeo-Christian doctrine.  The abolition of private property under communism violates the great commandment, “Thou shalt not steal.”

This disregard for private property rights continues in our day. In 2008, the socialist President of Argentina, Cristina Kirchner, seized $29 billion of the private retirement savings of Argentinean workers, to use for what the London Telegraph described as “a funding kitty” for her socialist schemes.  The Wall Street Journal characterized Kirchner’s move as “cracking open the piggybank of the nation’s private pension system.” Thou shall not steal, Kristina.

The culture of envy fostered by class-warfare violates yet another commandment, the 10^th, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.” To create covetousness and the willingness to dispossess those who have more is fundamentally anti-Christian.

1. 4.   The Error Concerning the Function of Government

Communism and socialism pervert the proper function of government. If man is just an inert piece of matter and is completely subservient to the state, then clearly he is incapable by his own ingenuity, entrepreneurship, abilities, and efforts, with his own failures and successes, to create anything worthwhile in society. Therefore the state, instead of protecting the framework in which man and associations can flourish, must become a social engineer, to change man, and mold him to its utopian ideals. The state proceeds to artificially create the particular conditions and relations required by ideology to achieve the utopian goals of equality and happiness for all. But the proper role of the state is not to make us happy in accordance with its own warped designs.

Since this is not easily accomplished, given that man is free and seeks happiness on his own terms, much coercion is necessary. This includes not only the coercion of the Red Army, but procedural coercion, coercion by penalties and taxation, by the use of governmental powers to force the non-compliant to comply. All of this is completely incompatible with Christianity and a free society.

1. 5.   The Error Concerning the Function of Law

Communism and socialism pervert the function of law. The rule of law under the communists and their fellow travelers is no longer a useful framework in which each man may operate freely to achieve his ends and goals. It is no longer a light to the mind, a work of reason designed to help order political and social life, forbidding the things that war against a free and just society. For the communist, law becomes a mere instrument of coercion to bend and force citizens to comply with the warped vision of society’s rulers.

Bastiat put it this way: “Socialists desire to practice ‘legal’ plunder…they desire to make the law their own weapon.”

1. 6.   The Error Concerning Christian Charity

Communism and socialism war against Christian charity.

The socialist revolution depends on so-called class warfare. This artificial warfare, in its many forms—owners of the means of production vs. the laborers, the rich vs. poor, the landowners vs. workers—is the engine that moves society toward the goals of socialism, toward the perfect egalitarian society. The principle of class warfare is flatly and completely contrary to Christianity.

Class warfare, race warfare, gender warfare, generational warfare—and all the other new rubrics for dividing citizens from one another—are intrinsically contrary to the Christian Gospel. Socialists use them all to erode the foundations of Western civilization. Socialist tactics strive to fan the flames of hatred, discord and resentment in society. They seek to create a “culture of envy” and mistrust. They therefore permanently injure the social fabric and harmony of society. Envy, the socialist “virtue,” is considered a capital sin in the Church’s doctrine. Socialism, with its class warfare, could not be more incompatible with the Church’s teaching that charity and justice are the great binding forces in society.

1. 7.   Errors Concerning the Family and Social Institutions

Communism and socialism are inimical to the family and those organizations which function as intermediary structures between the state and the individual in society. Anyone who has experienced communism need not have such an obvious matter explained. The communists without hesitation separated children from their families, mercilessly indoctrinated them and made their choice of trade or work simply a matter for a communist bureaucrat to decide. They praised and rewarded children who had denounced their parents for deviating from the doctrine and dictates of the party. This is an illegitimate intrusion on the rights of parents. Catholic social doctrine has always held that the parents, not the state, are the primary educators of children.

The Church upholds the principle of subsidiarity, which teaches that intermediary structures between the state and the citizenry must be allowed freedom to carry out their proper functions in society.  These associations are a natural buffer between the state and the individual. The principle of subsidiarity guards associations, the family, and the individual against those who would promote unlimited government and their greed for power.

The current assault of the Obama administration’s Health and Human Services against Catholic healthcare institutions should surprise no one. The socialist state is required to eliminate its strongest competitors to gain greater control. The state, as it is seeking to control the health sector, one-sixth of the U.S. economy, aims to displace the Catholic Church and its mediating institutions. The state is resorting to procedural violence in order to force them to comply or renounce their right to serve the poor and the sick. Comply or get out of the way. So much for caring for the poor.

Required: A United Defense

We see that the communist and socialist state incessantly seeks to attenuate the economic, political, and cultural freedoms of each and every citizen. Therefore, communist errors concerning the nature of man and his relation to the state provide compelling motivation for opposition across the anti-communist political spectrum. All those engaged in the promotion of freedom should seek the common aim of defeating the ever increasing power of the state. Libertarians would be wise to defend the rights of the Catholic Church in its present battle against Obamacare, for in doing so, they fight to keep a safety net over the larger part of society and the individual. The fight here is not about doctrine, but about freedom for all. There is a strategic need for unity among conservatives, libertarians, and classical liberals, at this critical moment when freedom for all is threatened by the state. To continue to loose cultural freedoms is what permits, as Gramsci foresaw, the ever increasing loss in economic and political freedom.

Bastiat, in illustrating the need to defend the social order, urged a fusion of the proper defense of economic freedom and the cultural freedoms in society. The economic, cultural, and social freedoms rise and fall together, and must be defended as one. Social conservatives need to realize that if we lose economic freedom we will lose more political and cultural freedoms and therefore economics really matters. But libertarians and others should see that, by curtailing our cultural freedom, the government is gaining the ability to curtail economic freedom.

Bastiat, in his time, also urged for unity against the common foes of freedom. Speaking of the defenders of the correct conclusions in realm of economics and the defenders of virtue, religion, and ethics in society, he explained, “These two systems of ethics, instead of engaging in mutual recrimination, should be working together to attack evil at each of its poles.”

This nightmare of communism recurs in part because of our failure to theoretically dismantle the lies of the socialist revolution in the West.  If this is not done well, on a fundamentally philosophical basis, we will be repeatedly assaulted by new propagandists, who—while admitting communism’s past failures in practice—once again claim that the theory is sound and therefore that the human experiment of the socialist revolution ought to be tried again.  But human beings are not proper subjects of experimentation for political ideologues. We must therefore teach that the theory is erroneous, and deadly. Morally, we cannot afford more corpses to show its devastating effects in practice.

A philosophically sound and united defense by all defenders of freedom is needed at this time.

Justice for the Poor

At a practical level, the first duty of the Christian, before jumping into the arena of social policy vis-à-vis the poor, is not good intentions or a loving heart for the poor. The first necessary requirement in justice is competence.  Social policy for the poor requires sound economic theory. Bad economic theory leads only to further errors in practice, which hurt the poor.

Good intentions alone do not make one competent in economic or social policy.  Simply having a loving heart for the sick does not grant the doctor moral authorization to perform surgery on them.  The surgeon must be competent before he picks up his scalpel. An easy indictment of capitalism and free-markets is wrong-headed and empirically inaccurate. This sort of incompetence in economic theory has hurt, and is hurting, the poor. [Francis can take that and bring it home…]. 

Believers must also make clear distinctions regarding action. There is a difference between feeding the poor and alleviating poverty per se. The latter requires the creation of economic wealth. Aiding the poor is a corporal work of mercy in the Catholic Church and it is a good to be freely exercised. But feeding the poor is quite different from alleviating poverty. If we feed a poor beggar on the street, he will remain equally poor even as he consumes the bread we have offered. Food aid to the poor does not create economic networks and economic activity capable of alleviating his poverty.

Mother Teresa was in the business of feeding and caring for the poor but she was not in the complicated business of alleviating poverty. The latter takes economic networks, entrepreneurship, creativity of a different kind, and technical know-how concerning the economy, the markets and financial policy.

Unless the poor are incorporated into economic networks, they will always be in need. To create economic networks, society requires entrepreneurship, risk takers, profit and loss, and―most important―employment. Without a job, the poor man will always be poor.

Asking people to seek a job and work has become almost taboo in the present day. Food stamps are so much easier.  It is important to help the poor, but to create systematic dependency for political gain is wicked. The state loves easy handouts, since they do not pay for them and they garner votes.

Furthermore, the easy handouts obfuscate an objective view and evaluation of failed socialist economic policies.  Socialists, as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher put it, are delaying the inevitable day of reckoning―which is “…running out of other people’s money.”   The façade of benevolence may win votes, but it certainly does not help the poor.

Many fail to understand that the Church has always taught what  entrepreneurs know: There is a great sense of dignity in work. Since every man is a moral agent, men should not be deprived of the responsibility and adventure of forging their own paths.  Caring for the poor is necessary, but intentionally increasing dependence is immoral and contrary to the Gospel teaching. It is an injustice to perpetuate economic arrangements that deprive man from working.

One could mount further arguments against the thesis that the social doctrine of the Catholic Church owes something to communism and its many incarnations.  But I will conclude my arguments with the simple assertion that communism’s utopia, in which all men are equal and poverty would disappear, is a dangerous and inhuman illusion.  Poverty cannot be completely eradicated from the face of the earth.  Our Lord Himself taught, “The poor will always be with you.”  If this profound lesson were internalized, the regimes of lethal utopia would be far less enticing.

To Truly Help the Poor

Christian charity and free market entrepreneurship are not only compatible, but necessary to truly aid the poor.

Christian charity strives for the moral betterment of man, and the advancement of our neighbor out of love.  For believers, these are works of religion, which many men and women of good will willingly and freely undertake.  Forcing people “to do good” is the death of the virtue of charity, as charity must always be freely exercised.

But a second factor is equally needed to alleviate poverty: entrepreneurs and the free-market system.  These offer the possibility of a greater and more lasting solution to the problem of poverty.  Creating jobs and industry is a great good, and to diminish the possibilities for entrepreneurs and the private sector and claim the façade of virtue in doing so, is pure folly. Entrepreneurs and the business class do more in the United States for the Church and for vital issues to society, than anywhere else in the world.

The two great lies of socialists and communists, that they are the champions of the poor and that they are the real “Christians” of our time, are myths that ought to be unmasked by all believers. For no regime has ever visited more poverty, death and suffering upon humanity. Civilization has seen clearly what this revolutionary change looks like and we would all be well advised to remember as  philosopher George Santayana warned—“those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

The West has had enough of revolutionaries and utopians. It is time for them and their supporters to pipe down and own up to their failures and crimes.

Rev. Guarnizo is a Roman Catholic priest of the diocese of Moscow. He is also a member of the Mont Pelerin society, founded by F. A. Hayek.

The Turning Of The Tide

I remember very well my sadness at the rapid disappearance – and most people said: inevitable extinction – of the traditional mechanical wristwatch in favour of the new quartz one. It seemed to me an entire world was dying, and an entire planet was embracing a soulless technology and killing the beauty, the magic and, yes, the poetry of craftsmanship. Small firms – then – like Blancpain and Chronoswiss decided this was too stupid, and the surrender to the power of quartz by no means unavoidable. They started producing watches for people who love beauty, and do not live by the second. This was the turning of the tide. A few years later, the mechanical wristwatch was already established as the timepiece at the wrist of the discerning – if, back then, pretty solvent – man of taste. Today, mass production of perfectly affordable, excellent mechanical wristwatches is all but back, and back with a vengeance in terms of general quality and value for money.

Then there was the matter with Communism. Once progressing all over Africa, rolling over vast part of Asia, heavily influencing South America and even infecting many countries in Western Europe, its advancement seemed unstoppable. In those years, the US administration spoke of “containment” of Communism, as if a tsunami was obviously coming their way and the only thing they could do was to avoid being flattened by the impact. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher changed all this. In my eyes, Reagan’s election was the turning of the tide. Ten years later, Communism was all but bankrupt.

Then there was the “global warming” craze, by 2006 the pet ideal of the stupid and by 2008 clearly advanced to State Religion in countries like the UK. A few people kept swimming against this immense tide, unafraid. I mention here the Cato Institute with its brilliant work, and most of all an homosexual, Proto-communist, far leftist environmentalist with the rare courage to recognise he had been completely wrong all the time: Bjorn Lomborg, the author of “The Sceptical Environmentalist”. Lomborg was persecuted for years, as the Climate Mafia tried to deprive him of income and dignity. He was, last time I look, vindicated, and the new religion was – thanks also to new taxes, heavily challenging the masses who are only in favour of “good causes” when they do not have to pay for it – dead and buried by 2011. This time, the turning of the tide was, even, exceptionally fast.

Another tide is now turning: abortion. One must be blind not to see that what seemed only twenty years ago an unchangeable “new reality” all over the West, but particularly in Western Europe, is now crumbling under the pressure of a new generation of people not ready to accept murder as a way to solve a problem, and not willing to swallow the tales of the self-serving murderesses. This was a slow turning, and it will unfold very slowly in the other direction; but it’s undeniably there. What changed matters here is more difficult to point out. The army of aging women haunted by abortions committed decades before certainly played a significant role; the demographic also helped; the beautiful work of John Paul II was without doubt another big factor. This was a very slow turning, but I don’t think any Cuomo or Obama will be able to do anything against it.

And then there is another tide, that has not turned yet: Sodomy. As perverts and their helpers advance in the Western countries and try to have perversions recognised as human right, a strong opposition develops. Russia, under Putin’s guide, exposes the West’s godless stupidity with admirable energy, and may it long last. Many African countries refuse the drink the homosexual Kool-aid. Resistance develops in countries like France. I am under no illusion that the turning of the tide will come soon here. Rather, years of bitter fight await us. I am also afraid it will get worse before it gets better, as I see Italy unable to resist to the new wave of sugary goodism, and rapidly advancing towards legal protection of sodomy under the benevolent look of the “who am I to judge” Pope. It will get worse before it gets better, but when it gets better it will be because of those who have not shut up when it was very bad; and if we were to shut up now, who knows when it will become better.IN the matter of sodomy, I think the wake-up call will come when the children “adopted” by them will turn up to be victim of sexual abuses in percentages unknown among heteros. Unless, of course, by that time things will be bad enough that no one will be able to see the problem in the first place. hey, if forty years ago anyone had told me one day sodomy would be celebrated, I’d had laughed out loud, too.

Still, let us not lose courage, and let us stay in good spirits.

The same as for the watches, communism, global warming and abortion, one day this tide will turn, too.

Mundabor

Russians Show Some Common Sense

It's official: commie on the right more evil than commie on the left.

Whilst the West sinks in an ocean of political correctness in which pretty much everything is allowed, the Russians still show some common sense.

It appears more than 90% of Russians support a ban on homosexual propaganda. And in fact, I can’t imagine any country in Europe allowing such open show of perversion only 30 or 40 years ago.

Note the difference with London, where mayor Johnson (whom, make no mistake, you should still vote if you ask me, for reasons which have to do with the fact his only real opponent is pure evil)  bans a Christian adv from the underground after having had no problem at all with the homo propaganda the Christian adv was reacting to.

Note also that the opposition to homo propaganda is almost as widespread among younger people than among older ones, and is extremely widespread even by people of communist sympathies.

That some damn Russian commie should teach us basic morality is really a sign of the times.

Mundabor

Catholic And Capitalist

 

A beautiful blog post on Rorate Caeli about the way Capitalism and Catholicism are compatible (or not).

The matter is, of course, one of definitions. If by Capitalism we mean, with dictionary.com

 an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.

then it is clear that not only is this system not in any way in contrast to Catholicism, but by encouraging the production and distribution of wealth and free time like no other system in the hystory of humanity (you would not, and I mean not, find any other system allowing so many to become so successful by so humble origins; not a system creating such a huge means to support the less fortunate) it is certainly conducive to improvement in the spiritual and material conditions of Christianity. Today, most people can access, say, the summa theologica online and have the time and means to enjoy it in comfort. Try that in North Corea, or in any rural society that is not the fruit of the naive imagination of hopeless dreamers.

The problem lies, as so often, in the distorted perception some have of the present world, and in the non-existent historic perspective of too many.

On the one hand, the indefatigable supporters of the theory of the Great Conspiracy of some very fat and very rich – invariably cigar-smoking – “fat pigs” lets some people – often unemployed,  frustrated and, in general, losers – choose them as the scapegoat of everything that runs below their own perfect standard, and of the culprits for all the differences with the perfect world they would most certainly create if they only were allowed to run it.

On the other hand, it would be foolish to deny that Capitalism has gone, like a savagely growing teenager, through a phase of hormonal tempest and disordinate growth, a phase during which it was probably not unfair to say that with all the wealth and possibilities created by capitalism, it was possibly reducing more people to brutes than was helping to raise to a better life, and the rather vivid descriptions of the Dickenses, Zolas  and Conan Doyles of this world move one to think whether the old pre-capitalistic society was not in the end a better way of life – though with, in absolute terms, less certainly and possibly less to eat, as proved by the huge number of people attracted by the slums of the great cities and the rather savage work in the mines –  than the security, paid at great price, of the employment in a mine or a mill, let alone a life of expedients and utter misery.

What many, I think, struggle to understand is that Capitalism is smart. It is self-healing like skin, durable and supple like leather. When growth became inhordinate and, at times, inhuman, Capitalism corrected itself and transformed into a system able to distribute wealth and free time with such liberality as to … assure its survival and thriving. When Communism threatened it, Capitalism made possible and financed the greatest arms race humankind had ever seen, and got rid of the problem (thanks, Gipper!) in a couple of decades. When smog and dirt were  disfiguring the landscape, destroying life in the rivers and  changing the faces of the most beautiful cities, Capitalism created ways to “clean itself” and make life better for everyone, poor or rich, young or old. “You can’t trust air you can’t see”, was the sad joke in Los Angeles in the Fifties. When Capitalism creates too much statalism, entitlement mentality and exploding public debt capitalism creates… the Tea Party, and the self-healing mechanism starts another round of self-reform.

Those who, today, rant again Capitalism generally do so from their own laptop, at home, or perhaps from the nearby cafe with wifi connection. They are “poor” – when they are – at a level inconceivably high for every generation before them, bar none. Many of them not only do not know poverty; they do not know work, passing judgement over a system which maintained them every day since their birth. Think “Occupy”.

You could of course say that Capitalism led to the loss of the spiritual backbone of the West, but I would disagree. If we look at Europe, some of its richest corner are among the most Catholic (Bavaria in Germany; Triveneto in Italy), and the most powerful country of the planet is still the most Christian among the major ones. The problems of Catholicism – and of Christianity – do not come from the wealth (everyone of us know, and history puts in front of us inifinte example, of people very rich, and very pious) but from the betrayal of Christianity from the side of the clergy, the Catholic clergy as well as many Protestant ministers. When, though, the Christian ministers do not abdicate to their role Christianity is robust and expanding, and the importance religion is having in the current presidential run once again show how Capitalism and Christianity – or more specifically, Cathlicism – are not only compatible, but mutually beneficial.

It beggars belief that a “crisis” that left the Western world, perhaps, 2% back from the top is lived as some biblical catastrophe, or taken as a sign – as some some particularly stupid person did; an archbishop of Westminster come to mind – of the “end of capitalism”.

Fools. Capitalism will bury them and all their blabbering as it has buried poverty, communism, pollution and so many other threats and evils.

Please visit Rorate Caeli  and enjoy the many beautiful quotes from past Popes, putting them – of course – in their own historical perspective. Even JP II, generally so prone to under-the-beltline populism when the talk is about such themes, gets it entirely right.

Mundabor

Where Commies Go To Die

The newcomer was surprised at the existence of the place, and at seeing so many old friends there...

Lucio Magri was an Italian journalist and politician. A smart and eloquent guy, you would wonder how he could be a Communist. He was, of course, not your friend-of-the-workers commie, but rather one of those at-ease-with-the-rich commie, who could be very critical of the “real communism” because he felt so good talking of his own, imaginary brand of it.

Lucio Magri went to Switzerland to commit suicide. His commie ideology not contemplating even the possibility of the existence of God, he thought it fitting to dispose of himself like you do with an old TV set.He was so depressed, some say, after his wife’s death. He was so depressed, other say, after seeing the ruinous fall of everything Communist. He was such a communist, say I, that is: an idiot to the last. Although in his case you may say, a well-spoken and well-dressed idiot.

Lucio Magri is now, with a very high degree of probability, in Hell. It is fitting to say this because the usual good-ism does not help much in front of a planned and clinically executed project of getting rid of oneself. Except, of course, one can’t get rid of himself, ever. If Hell exists – and it does; Jesus said so; Magri might have been aware of His existence, methinks – then Lucio Magri is very, very probably there.

He is – very probably – there because he allowed his stupid ideology to, literally, eat him alive. He is there because he allowed his soul to be polluted with a false ideology at the point of not caring even for the possibility that, in the same way as he had been spectacularly wrong all his life about communism, he might be spectacularly wrong about God’s existence, too.

Lucio Magri was, for a 79 years old, a healthy man. He wasn’t suffering of some painful disease, and didn’t suffer of some slowly advancing disease like dementia; no, he was one of those healthy old men we fortunately see more and more often around us. What killed him was the emptiness he carried inside, the refusal to accept he might have been utterly and completely wrong, the ruthless disregard for human life that is such a typical trait of Communists the world over.

Lucio Magri willingly, if not consciously, chose Hell. Unless for some strange miracle and extraordinary feat of his guardian angel – poor one, how he must have suffered – he found the strenght, in his last seconds, to deny all his life and ideology and repent, he is most assuredly in Hell and this is what became of the well-spoken, well-dressed, pleasant armchair revolutionary.

Let this be a cautionary tale. Communism is of the devil, and those who believe in Communism and do not repent will get to him in the end.

Mundabor

Pope Pius XII’s Message After the Victory In Spain

No, this is not a photoshop creation.....

Rorate Caeli has an old-ish, but always beautiful blog post: the translation of the message sent by Pope Pius XII to the Spanish Faithful at the end of the Civil War in Spain.

Pointedly, Rorate Caeli point out that this is a reminder of who represented what in that conflict.

I reproduce the text in its entirety, and allow myself to suggest that it be accompanied by a prayer for Francisco Franco, the brave men who followed him in his stand, and all those who fought and died for Christ.

Let us also use this as a reminder that open persecution is always nearer than one thinks.

Mundabor

———————————————————————————–

RADIOMESSAGE
«CON INMENSO GOZO»
OF HIS HOLINESS
PIUS XII
TO THE SPANISH FAITHFUL

(April 14, 1939)

With great joy We address you, most dear children of Catholic Spain, to express to you our fatherly congratulations for the gift of peace and of victory, with which God has deemed worthy to crown the Christian heroism of your faith and charity, tried in so many and so generous sufferings. Our Predecessor, of venerable memory, expected, with longing and trust, this Providential peace, which is undoubtedly the fruit of that copious blessing which he sent, in the very beginning of the struggle, “to all those who had devoted themselves to the difficult and dangerous task of defending and restoring the rights and the honor of God and Religion” [1]; and We do not doubt that this peace shall be the one that he himself foretold since then, “the sign of a future of tranquility in order, and of honor in prosperity” [2].

The designs of Providence, most beloved children, have once again dawned over heroic Spain. The Nation chosen by God as the main instrument of the evangelization of the New World and as an impregnable fortress of the Catholic faith has just shown to the apostles of materialistic Atheism of our century the greatest evidence that the eternal values of religion and of the spirit stand above all things.

The tenacious propaganda and the constant efforts of the enemies of Jesus Christ seemed to have desired to try in Spain a supreme experiment of the dissolving forces which they have at their disposal throughout the world; and even though it is true that the Almighty has for now not allowed them to achieve their goal, He has at least tolerated some of their terrible effects, so that the world could see how religious persecution, undermining the very bases of justice and charity, which are love for God and respect for His holy law, may drag modern society to unthinkable abysses of evil destruction and passionate discord.

Convinced of this truth, the sane Spanish people, with the two marks characteristic of their most noble spirit, which are generosity and frankness, rose up determinedly in defense of the ideals of Christian faith and civilization, deeply rooted in the Spanish soil, and, aided by God, “who does not abandon those who hope in Him” (Judith 13, 17), could resist the push from those who, deceived by what they believed to be a humanitarian ideal of the exaltation of the meek, truly fought only for Atheism.

This primordial meaning of your victory makes us dwell in the most promising hopes, that God in His mercy will deign lead Spain through the safe path of its traditional and Catholic grandeur; which will be the point that will guide all Spaniards, who love their Religion and their Fatherland, in the effort to organize the life of the Nation in perfect harmony with its most noble history of Catholic faith, piety, and civilization.

We thus exhort the Authorities and Shepherds of Catholic Spain to enlighten the mind of those who were deceived, showing them, lovingly, the roots of Materialism and Secularism from which their errors and wrongful acts came forth, and from which they could spring forth again. Propose to them the principles of individual and social justice, without which the peace and prosperity of nations, as mighty as they may be, cannot subsist, and which are those contained in the Holy Gospel and in the doctrine of the Church.

We do not doubt that it will happen thus, and the bases for Our firm hope are the most noble and Christian sentiments, of which the Chief of State and so many gentlemen, his faithful collaborators, have given unequivocal evidence with the legal protection which they have granted to the supreme religious and social interests, according to the teachings of the Apostolic See. The same hope is also founded upon the enlightened zeal and abnegation of your Bishops and Priests, tempered by pain, and also in the faith, piety, and spirit of sacrifice of which, in terrible hours, all classes of Spanish society gave heroic proof.

And now, before the remembrance of the mounting ruins of the bloodiest civil war recorded in the history of modern times, We, with pious regard, bow our head, above all, to the holy memory of the Bishops, Priests, Religious of both sexes, and faithful of all ages and conditions who, in such an elevated number, sealed with blood their faith in Jesus Christ, and their love for the Catholic Religion: «maiorem hac dilectionem nemo habet», “Greater love than this no man hath” (Jn 15, 13).

We also acknowledge our debt of gratitude towards all those who sacrificed themselves even unto heroism in defense of the unalienable rights of God and of Religion, either in the battlefields, or devoted to the sublime works of Christian charity in prisons and hospitals.

We cannot hide the bitter sorrow that the remembrance of so many innocent children, who, having been ripped from their homes, were taken to faraway lands, often in danger of apostasy and perversion: we desire nothing more ardently than to see them returned to the bosom of their families, where they will once again find the warm and Christian tenderness of their own. And those others who, as prodigal sons, wish to return to the house of the father, we doubt not that they will be welcomed with goodwill and love.

It falls upon You, Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate, to advise all, so that in their policy of pacification all will follow the principles taught by the Church, and proclaimed with such nobility by the Generalísimo: of justice for crime, and of lenient generosity for the mistaken. Our solicitude, also as a Father, cannot forget these deceived ones, whom a deceitful and perverse propaganda succeeded in enticing with praises and promises. Your Pastoral solicitude should be targeted at them, with patience and meekness: pray for them, seek them, lead them again to the regenerative bosom of the Church and to the warmth of the Fatherland, and lead them to the Merciful Father, Who awaits them with open arms.

Therefore, most dear children, since the rainbow of peace has returned to brighten the heavens of Spain, let us come together heartily in a fervent hymn of thanksgiving to the God of Peace and in a prayer of forgiveness and mercy for all those who perished; and, in order that this peace be fruitful and longlasting, We exhort you with all the fervor of Our heart, to “keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4, 2-3). Thus united and obedient to your venerable Episcopate, devote yourselves joyfully and with no delay, to the urgent work of reconstruction, which God and the Fatherland expect from you.

As a pledge of the copious graces, which the Immaculate Virgin and Saint James the Apostle, Patrons of Spain, shall obtain for you, and which the great Spanish Saints have merited for you, We bestow upon you, Our dear children of Catholic Spain, upon the Chief of State and his illustrious Government, upon the zealous Episcopate and their selfless Clergy, upon the heroic combatants, and upon all the faithful Our Apostolic Blessing.

PIUS XII
________________________________

Fulton Sheen, The Cross And The Christ.

Perceptive, Persuasive, Prophetic: Archbishop Fulton Sheen

Re-browsing the exceedingly beautiful “Life of Christ” from the great Fulton Sheen (a book that, if you ask me, should be obligatory reading in every RCIA, or confirmation class) I stumbled upon this very beautiful concept which, once again, made on me a profound impression (emphases always mine).

“The modern world, which denies personal guilt and admits only social crimes, which has no place for personal repentance but only public reforms, has divorced Christ from His Cross; the Bridegroom and Bride have been pulled apart. What God hath joined together, men have torn asunder. As a result, to the left is the Cross; to the right is the Christ”. […] Communism comes along and picks up the meaningless Cross; Western post-Christian civilization chooses the unscarred Christ.”

“Communism has chosen the Cross in the sense that it has brought back to an egotistic world a sense of discipline, self-abnegation, surrender, hard work, study, and dedication to supraindividual goals. But the Cross without Christ is sacrifice without love. Hence, Communism has produced a society that is authoritarian, cruel, oppressive of human freedom, filled with concentrantion camps, firing squads, and brain-washings”

“The Western post-Christian civilization has picked up the Christ without His Cross. But a Christ without a sacrifice that reconciles the world to God is a cheap, feminized, colorless, itinerant preacher who deserves to be popular for His great Sermon on the Mount, but also merits unpopularity for what He said about His Divinity on the one hand, and divorce, judgment, and hell on the other. This sentimental Christ is patched together with a thousand commonplaces. […] Without His Cross, He becomes nothing more than a sultry precursor of democracy or a humanitarian who taught brotherhood without tears”.

This is impressive enough, and the lucidity of the man almost uncanny. The next part, though, is almost scarily prophetic.

“The problem now is: Will the Cross, which Communism hold in its hands, find Christ before the sentimental Christ of the Western world finds the Cross? It is our belief that Russia will find the Christ before the western world unites Christ with His Redemptive Cross”.

Communism is now, practically, no more; Russia is slowly but surely coming back to an increased form of religious practice. The West has deformed his “Christ without the Cross”, “patched together with a thousand commonplaces” to the point of parody, to an extent that Fulton Sheen probably couldn’t even imagine. Still, we can see a reaction forming already, with Christians now awakening to the danger and closing ranks.

This is also to be seen in the fundamental optimism of this great man, unable to wonder if Christ and the Cross will be reunited, but merely when.

Ah, to have half a dozen like him in these difficult times…

Mundabor

Universae Ecclesiae And Catholic Bloggers

Hopefully, people like him will make us superfluous: Cardinal Burke.

Browsing around the Internet in search of reactions to Universae Ecclesiae, I was once again struck by a very clear phenomenon: the absolute, stunning, annihilating prevalence of Conservative Catholics in the blogosphere. Their dominance is now so marked, that one is not even surprised at finding one conservative blog after the other anymore; it is more so, that this is now so natural and so expected, that the chance encounter with a liberal blog would have been – if I had had such encounter – a rather shocking experience.

This reflection should make us proud (I mean with “us” not only the cohorts of bloggers, but the legions of readers who, with their contributions and encouragements, make the entire world of Catholic blogging so interesting and instructive), if it weren’t the case that our existence is, in fact, very bad news.

It is a common fact that people don’t talk much of shared ideas or common values. There are no debates about the influence of pedophilia on society, because there is nothing much to debate. Similarly, there are – after the communist madness shot itself in the genitals – no discussion anymore about whether private property be a theft, and the like. Shared values are, by and large, shared silently.

Similarly, if in the Italy of sixty years ago you would have started a debate about whether it be good to abort or to practice euthanasia, the reaction would have been a non-discussion for the evident unworthiness of the proposer, it being generally understood and universally accepted that legalised abortion and euthanasia were a distinctive trait of the Nazi regime, and such things unthinkable in a Christian and halfway decent society.

And this is the entire point. Western societies have become so indecent, so accepting of typical Nazi values, that what two generations ago would have caused open mockery or ironic commiseration, nowadays causes savage discussions. The same goes for Catholic issues, with your typical aunt of, say, 1942 smilingly dismissing as in great need of rest whoever would have told her that two generations later, millions of words would have been written about the necessity of …….. kneeling before Communion.

Our very existence is, therefore, bad news, because our existence is the clear result of the most elementary common sense having been thrown to the dogs by the senseless pot-generation of the Sixties; a generation still spreading its poison in the form of senior clergymen and senior politicians, roaming throughout the world and seeking the ruin of souls to this very day.

As it is now, hundreds of millions of Catholics can’t remember the last time their bishop has said anything meaningful against abortion or divorce; they can’t, actually, not remember when their bishop has said anything meaningful at all, vague blathering about social justice and environ-mental issues obviously not qualifying. It’s not surprising that such faithful spend part of their evening reading Catholic blogs.

If, on the other hand, the bishops were firing daily from all cannons against modern abominations and the desertion of Christian values, Catholics wouldn’t be here in the evening reading what other Catholics think; you yourself, dear reader, would just be doing something else, needing this blog no more than you need to be informed about pedophilia, or incest, or “proletarian expropriations”. Shared values are taken for granted, and one feels comfortable in the very fact that they are no object for discussion (think about a world where vast masses think that pedophilia is all right: appalling, right?).

The day the Catholic clergy starts doing its job properly and assertively, Catholic blogging will stop being a phenomenon so vast as to even attract the attention of the Vatican. That day, million of fathers and husbands will start dedicating more time to their wives or domestic occupation and less to following endless discussion on the Internet. That day, Catholic blogging will become a far more subdued activity, because the nourishment and instruction the reader seek on the net is just there, available and propagated from the friendly priest near them, as it should have been all the time.

I firmly believe that the Liturgy is the Church. You can’t corrupt the Liturgy without corrupting the Church, and you can’t improve the Liturgy without improving the Church.

Let us hope that Universae Ecclesiae will grow to become an important step toward the end of the massive phenomenon called “Catholic blogging”.

Mundabor

“Communism From The Inside”: a Vintage CTS Booklet.

Godless, cynical, loser bastards.

Absolutely brilliant Catholic Truth Society’s booklet, as always from the Lux Occulta blog.
This one, Communism from the inside is special, though, because it is not a pamphlet written by a priest to warn against communism, but written by a former Communist to explain to the (let us say it) gullible and naive what Communism really is, from one who really believed in it.

Firstly, he highlights that Communism and Communists aim at the destruction of the religious phenomenon. he makes very clear how this is not an accidental part of Communism, an aside to the demands of “social justice”, but part and parcel of the ideology itself, without which Communism couldn’t exist. He explains how this concepts, understandably difficult to digest for most people, is kept hidden at the beginning (where the “social instances” play the bigger part) and progressively disclosed to the unknowing (naive) disciple, who will soon lose his faith, or every attraction for Communism. This desire to “destroy the last vestige of belief in God from the face of the earth” is exactly the aim of the modern militant atheism.

Particularly interesting is the description of the fighting methods of the Communists, who remind one closely of the Muslim terrorists of our day. On the one hand, the complete rejection of every category of good and bad. What counts is the class struggle, what is the measure of good action is the triumph of Communism; every action is justified, if directed to that aim. Beautiful examples follow (most shockingly about the churches in Hungary). The communists ideology will lure whomever it needs, and will lie whenever necessary, whilst all the time preparing to get rid (which may mean: exterminate) of the former allied when not anymore needed. The parallel with indiscriminate killing of civilians in terrorist attacks is apparent and whilst Communist regimes haven’t pursued such practices, they have made worse, with mass genocides and mass displacements/deportations used every time it was considered fitting.

It goes on. The appalling cynicism of Communism does not stop at faith in God. Family itself, called by Engels “that compound of sentimentality and domestic strife”, must be destroyed; the children raised mainly by the State so that good communists may be made out of them; women sent to work rather than allowed to care for the nurturing and education of their children; abortion and divorce allowed, unless the need of cannon fodder to protect the “cause” suggests a different policy. The appalling cynicism of this thinking gives you the full measure of the inhumanity of the Communist ideology. Interestingly, the same ideology is found in modern aggressive atheism, for which neither divorce not abortion nor euthanasia not perversions of all sorts are taboo.

After a brief explanation of the fundamental incompatibility of Communist thinking with western democracies (a banal concept today; less so in 1948 when the pamphlet was written) the author examines the power winning strategies of the ideology. Communists will “embrace” democracy only as long as necessary, as a means to an end; they will not eve aim at gaining a majority (which they know is a very difficult task), but at the creation of a revolutionary elite able to prepare for the right moment, when power will be seized by force and all opposition crushed. Here too, we see a parallel with the Muslim ideology, allowing its members to lie about their aim and beliefs so long as it serves them.

This little pamphlet will require less than a quarter of an hour of your time. It is absolutely brilliant because coming, so to speak, from the belly of the Communist beast. It is well-explained, easy to read, cogently argued.

More than sixty years later, we can gratefully say that the Communist menace has been rejected. Still, this pamphlet is very actual because new dangers have appeared on the Western horizon, militant atheism and (through immigration) Islam. Some of the traits of the Communist menace are, as explained above, common to both of them. We see the failure of communism and see the failure of every alternative system aiming (at least officially) to create some paradise on earth. Make no mistake, militant atheism and muslim imperialism will fail in the same way, though the struggle will be much longer in their case.

Alternative societies don’t work. The attempt to create paradises on earth which do without the Truth create hell on earth instead. The world has seen mighty empires come and go, has seen Communism invade one half of the planet and being crushed in mere seventy years. Ideologies and false religion will all, in time, go. Only the Rock will stay.

Mundabor