Another Chapter from Angelic Pastors?    Please read at least a few lines before lambasting and pillorying it. 

Pax Tecuм





One of our heros (or villians, depending on point of view) of the last chapter, Ernesto Pacelli, was quoted as saying: 
"If money had a religion it would be Jєωιѕн, but fortunately it does not have one, as a result of which it can be venerated
by everyone."  Needless to say, that is quite a strange statement coming from a pious Catholic.  Be that as it may, gold
certainly does have a religion, and that is Jєωιѕн.  Not Jєωιѕн in the sense of Moses and the Prophets, to whom Our Lord
referred the pharisees, but Jєωιѕн in the sense of Our Lord Jesus Christ speaking in the revelations of St John to the angel
of the Church of Ephesus when he spoke of "them that say they are Jєωs and are not, but are the ѕуηαgσgυє of Satan".  All of
the machinations of these Jєωs throughout Church history are well-chronicled elsewhere, and will not be mentioned here.  We
can pick up the story in 1776, when an apostate Jesuit professor by the name of Johann Adam Weishaupt founded a philosophy
club respectable people and tinfoil-hat conspiracy theorists alike call the Illuminati.  
     To make a long story short, the Masonic lodges, founded in Britain in 1717, were basically just stuffy halls where
anticlerical daydreamers vented rabid invectives against often deserving targets but did little in the way of concrete
action other than an occasional assassination.  Weishaupt concluded that such scintillating activities would get nowhere,
and decided to found an intellectual organization that would infiltrate, unify, and supercharge this organization to
discharge an international scheme of grand proportions, the conquest of the entire world and the consolidation of humanity
into a monolithic "nєω ωσrℓ∂ σr∂єr".  The Jєωιѕн bankers, particularly the Rothschilds, thought this a grand idea, both
financing his organization and introducing him to their aristocratic friends in high places, the youth of whom Weishaupt
quickly influenced.  Barely half a century later his work would span continents and foment revolutions around the globe. 
     Meanwhile, heaven had plans of its own, and would put them into action in its trademark mysterious ways.  Many think it
was Pius IX, who with bull Ineffabilis Deus, of December 8th, 1854, who defined the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. 
Actually, this dogma was defined by Our Lady herself, some years previous.  The work began with a secret visit to a
Visitation Nun in France:
     "On the 27th of November, 1830 ... while making my meditation in profound silence ... I seemed to hear on the right
hand side of the sanctuary something like the rustling of a silk dress. Glancing in that direction, I perceived the Blessed
Virgin standing near St Joseph's picture. Her height was medium and Her countenance, indescribably beautiful. She was
dressed in a robe the color of the dawn, high-necked, with plain sleeves. Her head was covered with a white veil, which
floated over Her shoulders down to her feet. Her feet rested upon a globe, or rather one half of a globe, for that was all
that could be seen. Her hands which were on a level with Her waist, held in an easy manner another globe, a figure of the
world. Her eyes were raised to Heaven, and Her countenance beamed with light as She offered the globe to Our Lord. 
     "As I was busy contemplating Her, the Blessed Virgin fixed Her eyes upon me, and a voice said in the depths of my
heart: ' This globe which you see represents the whole world, especially France, and each person in particular.' 
     "There now formed around the Blessed Virgin a frame rather oval in shape on which were written in letters of gold these
words: ' O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee.' Then a voice said to me:  ' Have a medal
struck upon this model. All those who wear it, when it is blessed, will receive great graces especially if they wear it
round the neck. Those who repeat this prayer with devotion will be in a special manner under the protection of the Mother of
God. Graces will be abundantly bestowed upon those who have confidence.' 
     "At the same instant, the oval frame seemed to turn around. Then I saw on the back of it the letter 'M', surmounted by
a cross, with a crossbar beneath it, and under the monogram of the name of Mary, the Holy Hearts of Jesus and of His Mother;
the first surrounded by a crown of thorns and the second transpierced by a sword. I was anxious to know what words must be
placed on the reverse side of the medal and after many prayers, one day in meditation I seemed to hear a voice which said to
me:  'The M with the Cross and the two Hearts tell enough.' "
     Heaven had just introduced its secret weapon, a weapon of cheap metals which would shortly mortally wound one of
Weishaupt's protogees, but back to the story. Our Lady instructed Catherine Laboure, that Visitation Nun that she was to go
to her spiritual director, one Father Aladel, about the apparitions.  At first he did not believe Catherine.  This should
come as no surprise, given the pathetic state of the Church in France at the time.  Two long years would elapse before this
priest  approached the Bishop of Paris with the story of the events.  History has not recorded whether or not that priest
was laughed out of subsequent luncheons at the chancery office.  The only thing known for sure is that the works of God are
like the wheels of justice: They turn slowly, but slowly they turn.
     After a considerable delay, the bishop gave his permission, citing no doctrinal objections.  Imagine that, a bishop
having no doctrinal objections to the ejaculation: "O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us."  One wonders if he had no
doctrinal objections to devotion to the Sacred Heart, or the Imitation of Christ.  But let us be thankful for small favors. 
As an afterthought, he asked that some of the medals from the first order to the minter for twenty thousand be given to him.
     Time must have been running short, however, for heaven deigned to work a sign.  Immediately upon receiving some medals,
the bishop put one in his pocket and went to visit Monseigneur de Pradt, a schismatic bishop appointed by his former
confessee, Napoleon Bonepart, to the archepiscopol seat of Mechlin. The sick man refused to abjure his errors and the Bishop
of Paris withdrew in defeat.  He had not left the house when the dying man suddenly called him back, made his peace with the
Church and gently passed away in the arms of the Archbishop, who was filled with a holy joy.  The bishop attributed this
miracle of conversion to the medal and was duly impressed.
     But heaven was ready for a much more spectacular show, an infiltration into the heart of the secret world of the
Illuminati, that the words of Our Lord Jesus Christ might be fulfilled: "For there is nothing covered, that shall not be
revealed: nor hidden, that shall not be known.  For whatsoever things you have spoken in darkness, shall be published in the
light: and that which you have spoken in the ear in the chambers, shall be preached on the housetops."
     Marie Alphonse Ratisbonne was born at Strasburg France on 1 May 1814, son and heir of a wealthy, aristocratic family of
Jєωιѕн Bankers.  While history does not know for sure, one can suspect that he was a prime target for the machinations of
the Illuminatiti, then seeking recruits into their ranks.  The fact that in 1842, he was engaged to his own niece, was
further proof.  Such a "romance" in tight family circles would facilitate the birthing or reclusive offspring that could be
surrepticiously placed in the ranks of bribed European nobility to be raised as their sons, a promise common enough in such
circles of the banking aristocracy.    At any rate, that same year found him touring Europe for health reasons.  
     It all began so innocently.  In Naples he makes a wrong turn and ends not in Palermo, but at the dock of a steamer
bound for Rome.  Despite a viralent anti-catholicism engendered by the conversion and ordination of his older brother,
Theodor, he booked passage.  In Rome, having arrived the feast of Epiphany, January 6th, while aimlessly touring ancient
monuments, he meets Gustavo de Bussieres, a protestant friend.  His brother, Baron Theodore, is a convert and close friend
of Alphonse's brother Theodor.  He meets Alphonse, and resolves to convert this irrational, irritated blasphemer.  He bids
Alphonse wear the Miraculous Medal (not so-called at the time, this being just a few months after it was struck in France)
and recite the Memorari of St Bernard of Clarvioux.  He rashly accepts, saying, "If the medal can do me no good, at least it
can do me no harm".  
     At noon, on January 20th, 1842, in his own words: "I was scarcely in the church [He was there for a funeral, not for
pious reasons.] when a total confusion came over me."  At this risk of delving too deply into eschatalogy, a comment will be
risked at this point.  The pain of loss in hell is manifested by the darkness and confusion Alphonse describes here. In a
way different than that at Fatima, Our Lady shows him hell, this time from an interior, rather than exterior view.  The
point here is that Our Lady, like her son, is the "Apostle of Hell" in the sense that she firmly impresses on the hearts of
her devotees the existence of this place.
     Continuing with Alphonse's account:  "When I looked up, it seemed to me that the entire church had been swallowed up in
shadow, except one chapel.  It was as though all the light was concentrated in that single place.  I looked over towards
this chapel whence so much light shone, and above the altar was a living figure, tall majestic, beautiful and full of mercy.
 It was the most holy Virgin Mary, resembling her figure on the miraculous medal.  At this sight I fell on my knees where I
stood.  Unable to look up because of the blinding light, I fixed my glance on her hands, and in them I could read the
expression of mercy and pardon.  In the presence of the Most Blessed Virgin, even though she did not speak a word to me, I
understood the frightful situation I was in, my sins and the beauty of the Catholic faith."  When questioned by his brother
over his strange state, he replies: "That I can only reveal on my knees and to a priest."  Then he holds up the medal and
says: "I saw her!  I saw her!"
     That event was the lynchpin for two avalanches which have not yet come to rest.  The first was the proliferation of
what was to become known as the "Miraculous Medal". These pieces of tin alloyed with copper and nickel, and stamped by
molds of iron, began to pour from the presses in streams inundating France and the rest of the world beyond. By the time of
Catherine Laboure's death in 1876, over a billion medals had been distributed in many lands.  They resulted in an explosion
of miracles too numerous to mention here, the canonization of the seer by Pius XII  on July 27, 1947, after her body was
found to be incorrupt, and the institution of a new feast for the Church celebrated February 11th.  To date, trillions of
medals have been minted.  While they have not yet overwhelmed the gold of the Jєωs, Our Lady of Fatima assured us this is
only a matter of time.
     Meanwhile, Rattisbone, who went on to be converted, ordained a Jesuit priest, had a great vision of himself as
converting the Jєωιѕн nation.  But his efforts in getting the Sisters of Mount Zion to Jerusalem and establishing an
apostalate there came to nought, and are obscured by the pages of history, as is wont to be all works when man proposes
them.  But what his conversion accomplished, in heavens plan, was that it rocked the circles of the Italian Illuminati to
the core.  Rattisbone apparently had access to the inner circles of the Italian Carbonari lodges, and these connections led
to a chain of events which allowed for a set of docuмents to be delivered to the Vatican, a set of docuмents that, in
retrospect, the popes might have been well advised to pay more serious attention to.
     Without any further ado, what follows are some extensive quotes from the Permanent Istruction of the Alta Vendita.  By
all means, grab those tinfoil conspiracy hats; they are required accoutrements.
 
     "EVER since we have established  ourselves as a body of action, and that order has commenced to reign in the  bosom of
the most distant lodge, as in that one nearest the centre of action,  there is one thought which has profoundly occupied the
men who aspire to  universal regeneration. That is the thought of the enfranchisement of Italy,  from which must one day
come the enfranchisement of the entire world, the  fraternal republic, and the harmony of humanity. That thought has not yet
been seized upon by our brethren beyond the Alps. They believe that revolutionary  Italy can only conspire in the shade,
deal some strokes of the poniard to sbirri and traitors, and tranquilly undergo the yoke of events which take place beyond 
the Alps for Italy, but without Italy. This error has been fatal to us on many  occasions. It is not necessary to combat it
with phrases which would be only to propagate it. It is necessary to kill it by facts. Thus, amidst the cares which have the
privilege of agitating the minds of the most vigorous of our lodges, there is one which we ought never to forget.
      "The Papacy has at all times exercised a  decisive action upon the affairs of Italy. By the hands, by the voices, by
the  pens, by the hearts of its innumerable bishops, priests, monks, nuns and people  in all latitudes, the Papacy finds
devotedness without end ready for martyrdom,  and that to enthusiasm. Everywhere, whenever it pleases to call upon them, it 
has friends ready to die or lose all for its cause. This is an immense leverage  which the Popes alone have been able to
appreciate to its full power, and as yet  they have used it only to a certain extent. Today there is no question of 
reconstituting for ourselves that power, the prestige of which is for the moment  weakened. Our final end is that of
Voltaire and of the French Revolution, the  destruction for ever of Catholicism and even of the Christian idea which, if 
left standing on the ruins of Rome, would be the resuscitation of Christianity  later on. But to attain more certainly that
result, and not prepare ourselves  with gaiety of heart for reverses which adjourn indefinitely, or compromise for  ages,
the success of a good cause, we must not pay attention to those braggarts  of Frenchmen, those cloudy Germans, those
melancholy Englishmen, all of whom  imagine they can kill Catholicism, now with an impure song, then with an  illogical
deduction; at another time, with a sarcasm smuggled in like the  cottons of Great Britain. Catholicism has a life much more
tenacious than that.  It has seen the most implacable, the most terrible adversaries, and it has often  had the malignant
pleasure of throwing holy water on the tombs of the most  enraged. Let us permit, then, our brethren of these countries to
give themselves  up to the sterile intemperance of their anti-Catholic zeal. Let them even mock  at our Madonnas and our
apparent devotion. With this passport we can conspire at  our ease, and arrive little by little at the end we have in view.
     "Now the Papacy has been for seventeen  centuries inherent to the history of Italy. Italy cannot breathe or move
without  the permission of the Supreme Pastor. With him she has the hundred arms of  Briareus, without him she is condemned
to a pitiable impotence. She has nothing  but divisions to foment, hatreds to break out, and hostilities to manifest 
themselves from the highest chain of the Alps to the lowest of the Appenines. We  cannot desire such a state of things. It
is necessary, then, to seek a remedy  for that situation. The remedy is found. The Pope, whoever he may be, will never  come
to the secret societies. It is for the secret societies to come first to  the Church, in the resolve to conquer the two.
     "The work which we have undertaken is  not the work of a day, nor of a month, nor of a year. It may last many years, a 
century perhaps, but in our ranks the soldier dies and the fight continues.
      "We do not mean to win the Popes to our cause, to make them neophytes of our principles, and propagators of our ideas.
That would be a ridiculous dream, no matter in what manner events may turn.  Should cardinals or prelates, for example,
enter, willingly or by surprise, in  some manner, into a part of our secrets, it would be by no means a motive to  desire
their elevation to the See of Peter. That elevation would destroy us.  Ambition alone would bring them to apostasy from us.
The needs of power would  force them to immolate us. That which we ought to demand, that which we should  seek and expect,
as the Jєωs expected the Messiah, is a Pope according to our  wants. Alexander VI, with all his private crimes, would not
suit us, for he  never erred in religious matters. Clement XIV, on the contrary, would suit us  from head to foot. Borgia
was a libertine, a true sensualist of the eighteenth  century strayed into the fifteenth. He has been anathematized,
notwithstanding  his vices, by all the voices of philosophy and incredulity, and he owes that  anathema to the vigour with
which he defended the Church. Ganganelli gave  himself over, bound hand and foot, to the ministers of the Bourbons, who made
 him afraid, and to the incredulous who celebrated his tolerance, and Ganganelli  is become a very great Pope. He is almost
in the same condition that it is  necessary for us to find another, if that be yet possible. With that we should  march more
surely to the attack upon the Church than with the pamphlets of our  brethren in France, or even with the gold of England.
Do you wish to know the  reason? It is because by that we should have no more need of the vinegar of  Hannibal, no more need
of the powder of cannon, no more need even of our arms.  We have the little finger of the successor of St. Peter engaged in
the plot, and  that little finger is of more value for our crusade than all the Innocents, the  Urbans, and the St. Bernards
of Christianity.
     "We do not doubt that we shall arrive at  that supreme term of all our efforts; but when? but how? The unknown does not
yet manifest itself. Nevertheless, as nothing should separate us from the plan  traced out; as, on the contrary, all things
should tend to it– as if success  were to crown the work scarcely sketched out tomorrow– we wish in this  instruction which
must rest a secret for the simple initiated, to give to those  of the Supreme Lodge, councils with which they should
enlighten the universality  of the brethren, under the form of an instruction or memorandum. It is of  special importance,
and because of a discretion, the motives of which are  transparent, never to permit it to be felt that these counsels are
orders  emanating from the Alta Vendita. The clergy is put too much in peril by  it, that one can at the present hour permit
oneself to play with it, as with one  of these small affairs or of these little princes upon which one need but blow  to
cause them to disappear.
     "Little can be done with those old  cardinals or with those prelates, whose character is very decided. It is  necessary
to leave them as we find them, incorrigible, in the school of  Consalvi, and draw from our magazines of popularity or
unpopularity the arms  which will render useful or ridiculous the power in their hands. A word which  one can ably invent
and which one has the art to spread amongst certain  honourable chosen families by whose means it descends into the cafés
and  from the cafés into the streets; a word can sometimes kill a man. If a  prelate comes to Rome to exercise some public
function from the depths of the  provinces, know presently his character, his antecedents, his qualities, his  defects above
all things. If he is in advance a declared enemy, an Albani, a  Pallotta, a Bernetti, a Della Genga, a Riverola, envelope
him in all the snares  which you can place beneath his feet; create for him one of those reputations  which will frighten
little children and old women; paint him cruel and  sanguinary; recount, regarding him, some traits of cruelty which can be
easily  engraved in the minds of people. When foreign journals shall gather for us these  recitals, which they will
embellish in their turn (inevitably because of their  respect for truth), show, or rather cause to be shown, by some
respectable fool  those papers where the names and the excesses of the personages implicated are  related. As France and
England, so Italy will never be wanting in facile pens  which know how to employ themselves in these lies so useful to the
good cause.  With a newspaper, the language of which they do not understand, but in which  they will see the name of their
delegate or judge, the people have no need of  other proofs. They are in the infancy of liberalism; they believe in
liberals,  as, later on, they will believe in us, not knowing very well why.
      "Crush the enemy whoever he may be;  crush the powerful by means of lies and calumnies; but especially crush him in 
the egg. It is to the youth we must go. It is that which we must seduce; it is  that which we must bring under the banner of
the secret societies. In order to  advance by steps, calculated but sure, in that perilous way, two things are of  the first
necessity. You ought to have the air of being simple as doves, but you  must be prudent as the serpent. Your fathers, your
children, your wives  themselves, ought always to be ignorant of the secret which you carry in your  bosoms. If it pleases
you, in order the better to deceive the inquisitorial eye,  to go often to confession, you are as by right authorised to
preserve the most  absolute silence regarding these things. You know that the least revelation,  that the slightest
indication escaped from you in the tribunal of penance, or  elsewhere, can bring on great calamities and that the sentence
of death is  already pronounced upon the revealer, whether voluntary or involuntary.
      "Now then, in order to secure to us a  Pope in the manner required, it is necessary to fashion for that Pope a
generation worthy of the reign of which we dream. Leave on one side old age and  middle life, go to the youth, and, if
possible, even to infancy. Never speak in  their presence a word of impiety or impurity. Maxima debetur puero reverentia. 
Never forget these words of the poet for they will preserve you from licences  which it is absolutely essential to guard
against for the good of the cause. In  order to reap profit at the home of each family, in order to give yourself the  right
of asylum at the domestic hearth, you ought to present yourself with all  the appearance of a man grave and moral. Once your
reputation is established in  the colleges, in the gymnasiums, in the universities, and in the seminaries –  once that you
shall have captivated the confidence of professors and students,  so act that those who are principally engaged in the
ecclesiastical state should  love to seek your conversation. Nourish their souls with the splendours of  ancient Papal Rome.
There is always at the bottom of the Italian heart a regret  for Republican Rome. Excite, enkindle those natures so full of
warmth and of  patriotic fire. Offer them at first, but always in secret, inoffensive books,  poetry resplendent with
national emphasis; then little by little you will bring  your disciples to the degree of cooking desired. When upon all the
points of the  ecclesiastical state at once, this daily work shall have spread our ideas as the  light, then you will be
able to appreciate the wisdom of the counsel in which we  take the initiative.
     "Events, which in our opinion,  precipitate themselves too rapidly, go necessarily in a few months’ time to bring on an
intervention of Austria. There are fools who in the lightness of  their hearts please themselves in casting others into the
midst of perils, and,  meanwhile, there are fools who at a given hour drag on even wise men. The  revolution which they
meditate in Italy will only end in misfortunes and  persecutions. Nothing is ripe, neither the men nor the things, and
nothing shall  be for a long time yet; but from these evils you can easily draw one new chord,  and cause it to vibrate in
the hearts of the young clergy. That is the hatred of  the stranger. Cause the German to become ridiculous and odious even
before his  foreseen entry. With the idea of the Pontifical supremacy, mix always the old  memories of the wars of the
priesthood and the Empire. Awaken the smouldering  passions of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, and thus you will obtain for
yourselves the reputation of good Catholics and pure patriots.
     "That reputation will open the way for  our doctrines to pass to the bosoms of the young clergy, and go even to the 
depths of convents. In a few years the young clergy will have, by the force of  events, invaded all the functions. They will
govern, administer, and judge. They  will form the council of the Sovereign. They will be called upon to choose the  Pontiff
who will reign; and that Pontiff, like the greater part of his  contemporaries, will be necessarily imbued with the Italian
and humanitarian  principles which we are about to put in circulation. It is a little grain of  mustard which we place in
the earth, but the sun of Justice will develop it even  to be a great power, and you will see one day what a rich harvest
that little  seed will produce.
     "In the way which we trace for our  brethren there are found great obstacles to conquer, difficulties of more than  one
kind to surmount. They will be overcome by experience and by perspicacity;  but the end is beautiful. What does it matter to
put all the sails to the wind  in order to attain it. You wish to revolutionize Italy? Seek out the Pope of whom we give the
portrait. You wish to establish the reign of the elect upon the  throne of the prostitute of Babylon ? Let the clergy march
under your banner in  the belief always that they march under the banner of the Apostolic Keys. You  wish to cause the last
vestige of tyranny and of oppression to disappear? Lay  your nets like Simon Barjona. Lay them in the depths of sacristies,
seminaries,  and convents, rather than in the depths of the sea, and if you will precipitate  nothing you will give yourself
a draught of fishes more miraculous than his. The  fisher of fishes will become a fisher of men. You will bring yourselves
as  friends around the Apostolic Chair. You will have fished up a Revolution in  Tiara and Cope, marching with Cross and
banner– a Revolution which needs only  to be spurred on a little to put the four quarters of the world on fire.
     "Let each act of your life tend then to  discover the Philosopher’s Stone. The alchemists of the middle ages lost their
time and the gold of their dupes in the quest of this dream. That of the secret  societies will be accomplished for the most
simple of reasons, because it is  based on the passions of man. Let us not be discouraged then by a check, a  reverse, or a
defeat. Let us prepare our arms in the silence of the lodges,  dress our batteries, flatter all passions the most evil and
the most generous,  and all lead us to think that our plans will succeed one day above even our most  improbable
calculations."
     That is quite a mouthful, and will take a long time for a stomach habituated to the dainty cuisine of soft American
Liberalism to digest.   But that this plan was coming to fruition was all too obvious during the pontificate of Good Pope
John.  As for the Angelic Pastors, they should have spent more time contemplating the messages of heaven to obscure
shepherds on distant mountains, as it is written by the Psalmist: "I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from whence
help shall come to me."