SOURCE:


Writings by Dr. John C. Rao
Americanism and the Collapse of the Church in the United States
(Remnant Press, 1984; Updated, Tan Books, 1994)
Introduction
Americanism is a term that appears to express nothing more than a devotion to America. In reality, however, it teaches principles and a way of life that pose, and always have posed, a threat to the Church of Rome. Indeed, the threat that it poses to Catholicism may be the most dangerous experienced by her in the past few centuries of revolution. Its harmful quality arises from its subtle and effective transformation of the United States into a new religion whose central dogma of “pluralism” cannot be investigated or questioned; a new religion whose creed is said to be purely “practical” and “pragmatic”, but which actually aims at a messianic rebuilding of the entire globe; a new religion that brooks no opposition to its will.

The collapse of the Catholic cause in the United States can be attributed in large degree to an understandable error to which patriotic Catholic Americans fell prey. Americanism was presented to them as involving nothing more than a praiseworthy love of country with practical, pragmatic goals. They rushed wholeheartedly into its defense under the assumption that their civic duty demanded it, and that failure to do so would lend support to the enemies of their country. But what they, in fact, received in the name of patriotism and pragmatism was a set of instructions for religious and cultural ѕυιcιdє. Catholics followed these instructions, replacing their true faith with the Americanist religion, generally not even recognizing that they were doing so, and, indeed, generally rejoicing in their self-destruction every step of the way.

Nothing can be accomplished for the cause of the Church (and, ironically, for the cause of true American patriotism as well) until such time as Catholics come to understand the nature of the force that is killing them. A full appreciation of the depth of the opposition of Americanism to Catholicism can, however, only be gained from discussion of historical problems rooted centuries in the past. Clarification of these problems will be a two-step undertaking. It will begin with an examination of what may be called the “soul” of America, and the ways in which the character of this soul dictated the development of a subtle, pseudo-patriotic, pseudo-pragmatic, fideistic religion. Next, it will focus upon the various attempts of an “alien” Church to come to terms with this truly anti-patriotic cult. The particular Catholic controversy surrounding the emergence of an Americanist heresy in the latter half of the nineteenth century will be treated in the context of this second step of my argument.

Only when the historical groundwork has been laid will it be possible to grasp the appeal of the “mess of pottage” that has conquered the contemporary Catholic—clerical, religious, and lay—and the ease with which the Church in the United States has lost its own soul and praised its ѕυιcιdє as a great victory. Only when it has been made clear how deeply-rooted the problem really is can its present world-wide consequences be properly judged and the formidable question be asked anew: what is to be done?

I. Patriotism and the American Soul
Two concepts crucial to an understanding of this analysis have been lost to the western world in the course of the last half century. The first is the idea that there is a structure of incalculable importance to the shaping of an individual which we can call the “nation”, and the second, the recognition that each specific nation is guided by a kind of “soul”. My contention is that the American “nation” has a tortured “soul”, and that this tortured soul has militated against the construction in the United States of the sort of nation that the individual truly needs. The result of this unfortunate development has been an irrepressible conflict with the Catholic religion.
What, exactly, is a “nation”? This itself is a difficult question, and one that has been complicated by the revolutionary ideology of the past two centuries. Suffice it to say, for the moment, that it is the broad community within which the individual feels the presence of “home”. It is the structure whose language, geography, institutions, past and people evoke familiar and affectionate images.

One need not say that a given nation was historically predestined to be what it now is or to possess its present boundaries to recognize that some such “cradle” is essential to a man’s well-being. Even though it is the individual and the individual alone who gains salvation, the individual always achieves his goal within the context of a number of different communities: societies which include his family, his school, his workplace, union and even his clubs. Each of these enriches him as a person in varying degrees by elaborating psychological needs and incarnating moral duties in specific emphatic ways. Each pinpoints the True, the Good and the Beautiful for him from different perspectives.

The “nation” provides the framework for all these elaborations and incarnations, and is also the necessary symbol of the unity of a serious “home”. If a man does not belong to a real unity of this kind to which he is devoted and for which he sacrifices simply because it is the crucial framework for his existence, he begins his pilgrimage through life with only half of the baggage vital for his journey. The man without a country is like the man suspended in mid-air because he lacks the concrete things that a nation offers—a village, a language, a way of life and a means of providing it—in order to accomplish even his most basic tasks. Are there problems inherent in the individual-nation relationship? Many, because one may be tempted to break the moral code for the benefit of his country just as one can be led astray in his family’s self-interest. Do the difficulties that it engenders justify its abandonment? No more than a father’s crimes on behalf of his children legitimate rejection of the family structure.

How does one determine the peculiar quality of any given nation, as opposed to nations in general? By examining what I have chosen to call its “soul”. This muse or spirit can be identified through the clear means that God has given to every man to understand the world about him. It is captured by the study of language, literature and the legends and historical facts accompanying a nation’s foundation. It is understood through the deeds of its great men, its arts, customs and even its cuisine. The scholar entering to the “soul” of a nation comes to sense the basic presuppositions and modus operandi of its people. Are there problems with this search for a nation’s soul? All too numerous ones. It is easy to substitute feeling or mystic intuition for reason during the hunt. One can readily justify illicit behavior with reference to the demands of a peculiarly inspired national spirit. Do the difficulties that it engenders justify its abandonment? No more than the mistakes made identifying the character of one particular family demand rejection of the notion that it does somehow stand apart from every other “community” of man, woman and child. One must simply be prepared to submit his findings to the tribunal of Christ’s Church, to the judgment of that Mystical Body which has always respected and encouraged true national distinctions.

America’s “soul” has been formed by many factors, of which two are crucial to the present discussion. On the one hand, it has been shaped, to a large degree, by the attempt to unite a multitude of ethnic groups under a tradition inspired by the English experience. On the other, it has been built upon a foundation that is Puritan Protestant. Both these factors have generally merged together, forming a “soul” full of contradictions which few are willing to analyze or are even conscious of existing. These contradictions and difficulties are particularly blatant with regard to the question of the “nation” and “patriotism”. Although, in practice, such influences cannot clinically be separated, it is necessary to do so for theoretical clarity. Clinical separation will reveal that the first of these factors has seriously impaired the quality of nationhood in the United States, while the second has placed obstacles in the path of nationhood in and of itself. Their operation in tandem has created the confusion that permitted the growth of Americanism and its entrance into the life of the Church.

A clear grasp of the first of these formative influences necessitates a brief review of the nature of the British “soul”. England is a nation that has been marked by a conservatism more profound than that of perhaps any other occidental land. Anything that causes change or turmoil generally provokes a deep sense of unease in the English mind. This is as much true of thought as of action. Serious divergences of thought have customarily been seen by the English as having such destabilizing consequences as to inspire them to self-censor the taking of ideas to logical conclusions. It is no accident that the Protestant Revolution in England created the Anglican Church and the “via media”, the “middle way”, with its attempt to combine the new religion with much of the old. One ought not to be surprised that the Enlightenment in Britain did not give birth to political chaos, but, rather, to an effort to modify Christianity and establish that liberal Protestantism which masquerades a loss of faith behind outwardly traditional forms of worship and ecclesiastical government. There is little mystery to the fact that English philosophers have often been anti-philosophers, in the sense that they have sought to demonstrate that ideas have no intrinsic meaning, and that the whole philosophical enterprise is simply a word game. No wonder that literature, with its revelation of the “non-rational” in man, speaks more to the genius of the English nation than metaphysics. So much did the English spirit of distrust of ideas as a channel of change strike the Jesuit editors of La Civiltà Cattolica in the nineteenth century that they argued that a free press in Britain could not mean the same thing as in a Latin nation. The Latin search for distinction and clarity, they insisted, led continental peoples to logical actions that few Englishmen would have been willing to tolerate. An inbred desire for stability prevented them from taking themselves—or anything else—too seriously. If the virtue of this spirit lay in the unity that it provided, its vice lay in its potential banality. Fortunately, as many Catholic political theorists have argued, England unthinkingly preserved so much that was sound and Catholic in spirit that the banal never grasped hold of that country’s culture as a whole.

The United States to a large degree inherited this profound English conservatism. It, too, has always desired stability and disliked change. As soon as it was in a position to do so, it confirmed in its Constitution the political structure of its English past. It did so under the guidance of its historical aristocracy, which, in 1787, effectively usurped from the existing revolutionary Congress the right to do as it wished in this regard. Like the English, the Americans are a people generally suspicious of thought as being a potentially dangerous waste of time. It may be noted in this context that the Civiltà editors applied their comments to the United States as well as to the United Kingdom.

If America had been nothing other than a mirror image of England, then this disdain for the world of ideas might not have had the devastating consequences that it did. But the United States was different from Britain. It had to deal, among other things, with one of the great mass migrations of history. It was forced to come to terms with the descent upon its shores of millions of people of varying nationalities, most of them ignorant of the language and laws of their new home.

American “conservatism” gave birth to movements that tried to keep these masses out. They did not succeed in their efforts. The only other alternative, given the innate national drive towards stability, seemed to be the adoption of a policy of rapid “integration”. If unity could not be assured by closing down the borders, harmony might still prevail by churning immigrants through an “americanizing” process.

How was this task accomplished? In two ways. First of all, “negatively”, by subtly teaching the immigrant peoples what they could not do in the United States. Thus, they were shown that controversial issues disturbing stability, such as those touching upon religion, were out of place in the American forum. The Constitution had already begun this process when its awareness of religious diversity caused it to abandon the concept of an established Church. Secondly, it was also accomplished in a “positive” manner by discovering a goal towards which all Americans, regardless of their way of life, could strive.

This positive goal was found in a kind of materialistic “pioneer mentality” that manifested itself in varied forms. It is hard to exaggerate the power exercised by the image of a virgin continent, ready for conquest, upon the minds of excited Americans. An appeal was made to this image in the cause of “integration”. Loyal Americans were told to avoid divisive quibbling over “non-essentials”. Instead, they were directed down the “pioneer” pathway towards the practical exploitation of this country’s riches. Whether in the East, in a figurative sense, or on the frontier, in a literal one, Americans were assigned a common national purpose: the attainment of a livelihood for themselves and for their families at previously undreamed-of levels. Hard labor and solid material achievement were held up as the true marks of patriotic spirit. Hard labor and solid material achievements, that is, that did not itself somehow disturb or demand too much of one’s neighbors and thereby become divisive; hard labor and material achievement regardless of their object or quality. Thus, in effect, potentially dangerous but sublime concerns were to be sacrificed to assuredly pacifying but mundane projects. The sacrifice was to take place on the altar of American unity, for the sake of the harmony required of “home”.

America did not, with one major exception, carry out this mission violently. The exception was the attack upon the southern aristocracy in the cινιℓ ωαr, whose defeat removed the one class that was permanently controversial and wedded to principles other than the purely pragmatic and material. Otherwise, specific ethnic groups (with the exception of the Indians) were not massacred, foreign languages were not prohibited, and serious religions were not officially persecuted on a regular basis. Any effort of such a kind would have been seen as being destabilizing and divisive, thus violating the basic principle of “integration”. Moreover, “integration” was not primarily carried out by means of the government. Instead, American government aided the process through its very weakness, its unwillingness to enforce religious doctrines or to censor any ideas or behavior espoused by a significant number of people in this country. An all-encompassing governmental program would have clearly indicated the nature of what was happening, aroused opposition, and, perhaps, defeated the ultimate goal of stability.

Thus, the United States presented a two-fold image of protecting “freedom” and ensuring “stability” at one and the same time. It created the impression of establishing what has become known as a “pluralist” society, where many ways of life are “respected”. In truth, however, the manifold organs of Anglo-Saxon society and the spirit of Anglo-Saxon culture were “moderating” and “integrating” this diversity out of existence, slowly, peacefully, but surely. It created the illusion of stability, since the purpose of “integration” was to ensure the continued dominance of native American ways. In truth, however, native Anglo-Saxon Americans themselves were pressured into a gradual transformation of their own traditions. Anything threatening the adoption of the new groups soon began to be discouraged and renounced as much as immigrant particularities. Unity took precedence over custom, habit and even adherence to what was believed to be the truth. While seeking to integrate, native Americans were being integrated as well. Integrated into what? Into a “pluralist” society which could only survive by missing bits and pieces of the ideas of all of its component parts and by bending the entirety to the construction of a grayish culture serving the least common denominator in human material needs. A process was begun which has ended with the “integration” into American life of groups espousing perversities and determining how their needs and interests might help improve the GNP. A process was begun which has ended in the glorification of the computer technician over the saint, media hype over substantive issues, and mass-produced hamburgers over the creations of the great composers.

Generations of European observers, beginning with Alexis de Tocqueville in his Democracy in America, have remarked upon the effectiveness with which American society, motivated by its Anglo-Saxon spirit, has quietly repressed the emergence of sharp differences of opinion, and channeled its population’s efforts into limited, peaceful, but indiscriminately vulgar material goals. Their commentaries have been supported by numerous American writers who have felt the obligation to “drop out” of this society in order to live as full human beings. I am speaking here of men of the Right, and not of liberals, whose “anti-Americanism” is itself a form of the same Americanist mentality. One is reminded, for example, of T.S. Eliot’s assertion that the thinking American often sought to “lose himself” somewhere outside the national mainstream, in places like New York City, in order to maintain at least the illusion of intellectual and spiritual survival. One can point to H.L. Mencken’s satirical essay, On Being An American, wherein he argues that there are only two grounds for an intelligent man to remain in the United States: either as a means of swindling an easy living, or to enjoy some cheap laughs at the expense of the vulgarity around him. The writings of many such men betray a common bitter theme. America has made the “thoughtful”, the “spiritual”, the “committed” appear to be the province of either the “insane” or the “treasonous”. It has required no secret police in order to achieve this goal. The work has been done gently and naturally, due to the character of an Anglo-Saxon influenced “soul” gone wild.

I believe that these critics have been correct in their assessment. The American obsession with avoiding controversy has ended by punishing the serious man. This is a regrettable phenomenon, since a human being—and a patriot—is not merely a prosperity machine, but also a thinker, a culture builder, and a dreamer of dreams. He needs to pay his respect, both alone and as part of a community, to higher things. As Isaiah says, “without a vision, the people perish”. A nation that allows little or no public scope for such important demands of the human personality is a defective “cradle” indeed. Still, the Anglo-Saxon desire for stability retains some insight into the importance of “home”, its needs, and the value of harmony therein. It sees that something resembling a “nation” is vital enough to men to require sacrifices to maintain it. It appears to admit the country as a structure distinct from the individual and the obvious framework for his development. The baggage that it gives to its citizens may be faulty and inadequate, but it does, at least, provide something onto which they can latch in order to work towards certain legitimate goals in life.

But America grew up under a second and more destructive influence. It developed underneath the tutelage of Puritan Protestantism. This was a teacher that understood so little about human nature that it inevitably poisoned everything that came into contact with it. Even when it tried to fill the void left by the abandonment of higher national purposes, it did so by crushing entirely the idea of the nation. It thus threatened the American with the prospect of having no “home” to love at all.

What lies at the basis of Puritanism? An emphasis upon the total depravity of man after Original Sin. How can man be saved according to its precepts? Only by an individual act of faith in God’s willingness to accept an intrinsically evil monster to live with Him eternally. Nothing that a man might do, good or bad, can, according to the Puritan dogma, affect the outcome of his personal saga.

The results of such an outlook are manifold. A dichotomy between the all-perfect God and totally wicked individuals allows no scope for the work of society in the divine plan. All men are like atoms in the face of their God, fundamentally alone in their approach to Him. “Atomism” is, perhaps, the most basic Puritan by-product. The presumption of communities and authorities like the Church, which claimed to lead men to God, became intolerable. Popes and bishops, seen in this light, must inevitably corrupt whatever functions they perform in this wicked world, and, hence, cannot be part of the divine plan. A “Church”, insofar as one must exist to perform symbolic functions and prayer meetings, thus becomes merely the instrument of a “democratic” congregation of atomistic believers.

Man’s efforts to transform the universe into a “mirror of God” become equally useless. Music, art, architecture, food and dress and everything else attempting to elaborate the beauties of a corrupted cosmos become an abomination. Europe as a whole, whose cities had blossomed under Catholic auspices and hosted innumerable varieties of human endeavor, becomes hopelessly decadent. Many Puritans drew the conclusion that the only way in which a God-fearing Christian might survive would be by fleeing as far from Babylon as possible, to the other side of the ocean, to a New World. Here, paradoxically, he could create a place of safety, a New Jerusalem, a City on a Hill living outside of and above the vain attempt to divinize the universe.

Puritan Protestants did not necessarily wish to change the concept of “home”, “nation”, and “patriotism”. They, too, were English, and, hence, subject to the same conservatism tugging at the British “soul”. Moreover, unconscious Catholic habits and the pressure exerted by a thousand years of Catholic social life often prevented them from putting the full destructive force of their own ideas into operation. Nevertheless, the logic of Puritan Protestantism propelled it towards startling alterations in the patriotic ideal in America. It was destined to reach this end through its encouragement of secularization.

Secularization was promoted by Puritan Protestantism in three ways. One was by having supported tenets so inhuman as to drive men away from God in horror. A second was through establishing such a stark dichotomy between God and man as to throw into doubt the rationality of Christ’s whole mission, to deny the reality of the Incarnation and to retire the divine beyond man’s reach. The last was by so disdaining the world and ridiculing the possibility of its transformation as to liberate nature entirely from God’s direction. Even though Puritans desired none of these consequences, the logic of Puritanism ensured their success. Their progress was often hidden from public awareness, partly because the Anglo-Saxon conservative sense led those who had lost their faith to continue to refer to “God” and Christian terminology in discussing their non-Christian ideas, and partly because such men no longer even sensed the significance of their own apostasy.

A secularized man cannot completely shed the influences that formed him. The “secular Puritan” is still puritanical in his way of dealing with the world. This is obvious in three aspects of his outlook, all of which have reached their logical conclusions by our time.

One can begin by noting that although he no longer believes in God in an orthodox sense, the secular Puritan continues to understand men to be atoms, individuals in whose life society plays no true role. Just as a man was expected to make a private act of faith in God, he is now meant to make a private act of faith in his own “goals”, independently of his fellow creatures. Just as he once privately interpreted the Scriptures, he now must be “self-reliant” in his guidance of his own life. And just as the Church, with its panoply of authorities, was seen to be an unwarranted intruder in the relationship of the individual and God, all secular institutions are now condemned from the same standpoint. The state, the family, authoritative traditions in general and one’s pet enemy organization in particular, are all held to be guilty of a form of breaking and entering. Evil in and of themselves, they explain the persistence of wickedness on this planet and can only be tolerated if they exercise their functions subject to the free acceptance of individuals and through democratic structures analogous to those of the Puritan congregations. The present assault upon every aspect of authority, particularly visible since the 1960’s, is directly related to this attitude and cannot be understood without it. Secularized Puritanism and authority are mortal enemies.

Secondly, Puritanism can still be noted in the secularized American’s discomfort with efforts to transform the world into a “mirror of God”. This discomfort appears in two forms, superficially contradictory but firmly related at their root. Many Americans continue to anathematize “high culture”. They characterize everything from architecture and music to cooking and clothing as silly, wasteful, and effeminate, the moment that it rises above the mediocre. Other Americans feel the need to escape the blandness around them. They cannot, however, bring themselves to flee from it by cultivating truly serious culture. This would so tie them into the Greco-Roman and Catholic tradition as to frighten them back into their mediocrity. Instead, they develop a new type of “high culture” based upon the mad, individualistic ravings of their tortured puritanical souls. Their “cultural” creations are then guiltily justified by them with reference to deep biological or psychological needs. The one group of secularized Puritans adores the Big Mac as the height of human achievement; the other, a ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ’s multi-million dollar sculpture of a broken toothpick. In short, the Puritan, after his break with faith as during its full fervor, is unable to grasp the principle of restoring all things in Christ. He manifests his inability in either philistinism or perversion. If he does discover the true heritage of the West, he converts to Catholicism or plays carelessly with it like an adolescent plays haphazardly with things before which he should stand in awe.

Finally, the secularized Puritan cannot shake his conviction that the United States is divinely protected, the New Jerusalem, the place set apart by God to house those saints who have fled from Babylon. Even though God does not exist for him in the old way, something god-like is understood to guide the United States towards establishment of the Heavenly City on earth. America’s divine uniqueness now lies in the fact that this country has democratic institutions, that its geographical isolation continues to separate it from decadent European cultures and that its Pluralism, at least on the surface, appears to provide room for the atomistic individual to maneuver. Although his belief that evil can be dealt with through application of “the American Way” may seem to indicate a break with the Puritan past, it really is not. It is in the nature of a doctrine as horrible as Puritanism to push someone psychologically from espousal of a concept like that of total depravity to espousal of its exact opposite, just as it is in the nature of horrible exercise of parental authority psychologically to push a child to complete abandonment of his parents’ teaching. And it is also in the nature of a secularized Puritanism which has lost its vision of God and of Heaven to seek paradise in an earthly realm, peopled by autonomous, god-like atoms manipulating democratic pseudo-societies of the type that America seems to promise.

We are now at the crux of the problem. If America, even in the mind of the secularized Puritan, is the City on a Hill, it would seem to mean that “home” is something worth protecting. But the “nation”, understood in a traditional sense, must itself be a stumbling block to such a mentality. It is a hindrance because it, too, demands respect for authority, whether in the form of institutions or in that of customs and traditions. The true patriot must put brakes upon his “self-reliance” and his atomistic freedom for the good of the country. He is obliged to recognize his inability to provide for himself and his family, to communicate sensibly with a sizeable community and to blossom as a personality outside of his cradle. He is required to admit that society is good or, rather, that societies of all kinds are good, since no one can love his nation and hate the things that make it great. No one can love France, recognizing that the French nation gives him a language, people who understand his way of life, soil on which to be nourished, and a place to lay his head, without at least respecting those forces which contributed to creating it: the Roman Church, the universities, the communal institutions of the city of Paris, and a thousand other entities besides. The true patriot must, in the last analysis, be prepared to give his life to maintain his nation just as he must be prepared to give his life in the defense of his own body. But if a secularized Puritanism is to triumph, the patriot, patriotism, and all the baggage accompanying the idea of the nation must disappear. “Home” demands too much, it is too authoritarian, too reminiscent of the Church’s vain effort to place itself between God and the individual. Yet how could one maintain love for America without allowing it to become love of nation in its unacceptable sense?

The dilemma may be resolved only by giving a new definition of patriotism in the New World, one that takes secularized Puritanism and its preoccupations to heart. A patriotism demanding sacrifices for the sake of the cradle, and thus placing impositions upon the individual, is seen as a wicked thing. But a patriotism which redefines love of country and makes it into devotion to a set of anti-authoritarian principles is another story entirely. A patriotism reminding man of his dependence upon his city, tongue, and fellow citizens, the dead as well as the living, is seen to be as shameful as it is despotic. But a “patriotism” eliminating all these images could make a magnificent contribution to the liberation of the human race.

How could such a patriotism be developed? By transforming the prudential and, indeed, illusory phenomenon of pluralism into an iron-clad Pluralist Faith; by insisting that the nurturing of diversity as such is the only real purpose of government; by praising American institutions for working towards this end, despite the fact that, historically, such a goal has played no role in the conservative, Anglo-Saxon program; by then explaining that “God”, or whatever force a secularized man might find operative in the universe, had set up the United States and given it its Constitution and its wealth for the sake of propagating atomistic individualism. And, finally, by indicating that patriotism is also service to this cause. Patriotism no longer means protection of American institutions in the sense of their being the legitimate authoritative bodies ruling over men in this country, but protection of American institutions insofar as they help to crush the very principle of authority. Patriotism no longer means protection of American borders in and of themselves, but only insofar as they are the borders of that New Jerusalem established to destroy community and tradition. Indeed, seen in this light, everyone ought—and, indeed, must—establish American institutions and the “American Way of Life”. But, if, through some terrible apostasy, the City on a Hill were to betray its mission, everyone would then be obliged to be devoted to the humiliation of America, whether living in Moscow or Athens or Washington, D.C. True patriotism would then mean devotion to whatever other country takes up the cause of the Pluralist Doctrine. In this second, long unthinkable situation, the “patriot” must necessarily engage in what men throughout the long course of human history have always rightly called treason. And in whatever they do to promote this new form of “patriotism”, we shall see that they do not ensure freedom but, rather, the reign of pure force; the triumph of the will.

II. The Americanist Heresy
We are now in a position to define Americanism. Americanism is a religion which both major elements of the American “soul”—secularized Puritanism and Anglo-Saxon conservatism—have helped to develop. Americanism is a religion that adores the United States as the incarnation of the secularized Puritan vision of paradise. It is a religion that simultaneously adores the bland, materialistic, catch-all unity that stems from the Anglo-Saxon drive for stability and integration. Americanism is an evangelical religion that wishes the rest of the world to be converted to its doctrines and preaches them under the heading of Pluralism. Even though its dogmas are as iron-clad as Marxist ones, even though it inevitably revolutionizes societies under its control, it masquerades as being nothing other than a practical method of attaining the good life. Americanism subtly combines the ideological character of Puritanism with Anglo-Saxon disdain for ideas. Patriotism in the United States is devotion to this complex Americanist-Pluralist religion.

Let us examine the different aspects of this religion in greater detail. The strength of the secularized Puritan element in Americanism is incontestable. Few dare to defy the notion that America has a divine mission to protect atomistic freedom, Pluralism and Democracy. The Americanist faith is evoked on every ceremonial occasion by each political faction in its own distinct fashion. It is inscribed on national monuments and in patriotic legend. The conservative cult of the Constitution as a God-given docuмent reflects it. So does the Monroe Doctrine, which establishes the New World as an American sphere of influence, not on the grounds of self-interest, but as a means of carving out a “truly free” segment of the globe. The symbolism of the Statue of Liberty, the adulation of unrestricted capitalism and the spirit behind the American Civil Liberties Union are all different manifestations of the same religious definition of the meaning and glory of the United States. Moreover, the fideistic way in which this American Religion is taught, one which permits no investigation and discussion of the principles upon which it rests, is as classically Puritan as the historical influence of “preachers”—ministers, and then, in secularized form, professors, psychologists, journalists, etc.—in the interpretation of the true will of the supposedly autonomous individual.

Puritan and secularized Puritan control of the main educational and propaganda organs in the United States did much to ensure penetration of the vision of America’s evangelical mission, especially after the defeat of the southern aristocracy, whose peculiar and unfortunate character made it an obstacle to this. It was not, however, the only factor aiding such penetration. Indeed, certain features of the drive for integration also indirectly contributed to the strength of the Puritan vision of America’s role in the world. Thus, for example, incoming groups of immigrants were grateful, in a good patriotic sense, for the real material benefits they had won as a result of their acceptance here. They were all too unaware of the price they would ultimately have to pay in true happiness for the ability to consume goods that they did not really need or initially want. The United States, for them, was the land of milk and honey. Since the powers-that-be claimed that atomistic democracy and Pluralism were their essential backdrop, the immigrants gave the Americanist Religion their genuine support. They were too tired from trying to “make it” to notice what a sham their supposed freedom really was in the Pluralist scheme of things. The myth of American liberty became their myth as well. Also, the “integrationist” insistence upon work and material achievement, although not intrinsically anti-patriotic in the old sense of the word, aided anti-patriotic secular Puritanism in practice. It forced men to act as atomists, to lower their sights from God to insurance policies, to flee from the centers of community life, regardless of the emotional costs involved, just so long as a dollar was to be earned elsewhere. The constant picking up and leaving that has long been a part of the American way of life had to destroy tradition, authority and a sense of commitment in a way that aided the secularized Puritan cause.

Americanism, however, also means “religious” devotion to the bland consequences of the Anglo-Saxon drive for stability. It entails devoting oneself not only to the cause of atomistic freedom, but to a rejection of the firm ideas and divisive behavior that can come from actually exercising freedom. The result has been that Americanism requires simultaneous commitment to atomistic diversity and integrationist unanimity. While praising individualism, an American is really expected to avoid it like the plague. American protocol insists upon a danse macabre, an insane ritual of exulting in liberty and behaving with herd-like docility, whether in politics, at work or in private behavior. The inherent paradox has been seemingly resolved by insisting upon twisting individual “creativity” to the development of vulgar advertising jingles, unisex clothing and broad, insipid, intellectual formulae for everything from philosophy to foreign policy. Those who follow the prescribed pattern are lauded as being both men of conviction as well as team players; those who reject it are either laughed off center stage or written out of polite society as being insane. Older foreigners exposed to this horror are often baffled by it (though their children have digested the lessons and learned the steps of the danse macabre all too well). Most Americans do not even notice it, nor do foreigners raised under its spell from birth. Secularized Puritanism indirectly aids the adulation of unanimity just as the Anglo-Saxon conservative sense indirectly aids the growth of atomism. The philistines and perverts who are the standard bearers of Americanist creativity would not know what individualism really meant even if their lives depended upon it.

Americanism promoted an atomism that sneered at true community life with its panoply of authorities and traditions as the worst of plagues. This atomism did not understand just how necessary community was to save men from madness. When this atomism infected country living, where such respect was often great and where it was perhaps most essential, it made rural existence intolerably lonely. It has now created the suburb. It has punished those who fled the structured community of the old city for the “freedom” of the outside world with the misery of lives spent on super highways and in soulless shopping malls. The drive towards individual space has led to the creation of vast tracts of “sameness” across the entire breadth of the land. Similarly, those who wished to remain in cities found themselves forced to apologize for their behavior with reference to “personal needs”, “unique life styles”, and an equally corrupt spirit of self-reliance. This “individualism” has been crowned by an insufferable and repulsive trendiness. If the suburbanite atomist is herd-like in his vulgarity, the city-dwelling atomist is machine-like in his obsession with pseudo-intellectual and cultural fads. Americanism is, to a large degree, responsible for their troubles, and Americanism is a principle of death; of life-long euthanasia.

There are four major problems with Americanism, all of which have been mentioned above and which must be summarized now. Americanism is a false religion, a fideism disguised as being merely a practical method for achieving peace amidst diversity and attainment of a free and happy life for all. Rather than providing peace and freedom, it ensures the triumph of base, irrational will. This dangerous fideism destroys patriotism and the nation. It has the same effect on serious religion—especially the true one, the Catholic Faith. Let us examine each of these four problems in turn.

The Americanist usually claims that the American government and way of life are simply practical, effective pathways to human happiness. He also insists that they are “doctrineless” and “neutral” in character by virtue of the fact that they offer every possible viewpoint a chance to thrive. But we have seen that these are misrepresentations of reality. America is tied together with Pluralism, which is an evangelical form of secularized Puritanism, and shaped by the Anglo-Saxon tradition under pressures from immigration as well. This Pluralism breaks down commitment to all other ideas, establishing a purely materialistic harmony among pseudo-individualists. It has become one of the most effective means of oppression, repressing, as Marcuse says, by tolerating everything to meaninglessness and, therefore, to death. No beneficial new order of the ages began for mankind with the United States and the American Constitution. No new, happier man was born from the American way of life. Rather than providing some special form of grace to transform men (which only the sacraments can give), America and American Pluralism offer an example of the dismal logical consequences of certain already aged ideas and tendencies under the understandable though regrettable circuмstances of American History.

But what is of concern to us here is the fact that the Americanist has made an act of faith in the unique ability of American institutions to achieve the good, and that he does not see that he has actually become an ideologue. This blindness is totally comprehensible. Americanism does not appear to be a religion because it had to adopt the language of pragmatism to make headway in an Anglo-Saxon country that dislikes ideas. It does not appear to be a religion because of the subtle, generally non-coercive, Anglo-Saxon way in which it goes about its work.

The fact that Americanism is a religion and that many Americans do not see through its pragmatic mask is aided immeasurably by its fideistic character. Fideism is not a faith-seeking-understanding like Catholicism, respectful as the Catholic Faith is of both theology and philosophy, revelation and reason. Fideism prohibits all investigation of its central tenets and their difficulties. This is precisely what Americanism does. It defends and promotes the cult of America as God-Sacrament-Liberation Theology-Pragmatic Tool by cutting off every possible means of investigating and criticizing the various aspects of the American Way. One needs all the disciplines, supernatural and natural, to expose the errors of Americanism, since we have seen that it has developed out of a mesh of theological, philosophical, historical, sociological, and psychological factors. But the two-sided character of the error, secularized Puritan and Anglo-Saxon conservative, combined together ultimately in one, disguised, fideistic faith, works against a complete study of its essence and mode of operation. If one attacks its logical flaws on theological and philosophical grounds, it responds by referring to its purely pragmatic nature, claiming that it must not be taken on an “abstract” level but only as a practical method for establishing peace and freedom amidst the irrational flaw of human events. If one takes these arguments seriously and finds fault with Americanism on a practical, pragmatic level, on the basis of its historical, sociological, and psychological fruits, then it calls forth its exalted role as the sole means of attaining happiness for mankind. It one then returns to the attack on the abstract level, comparing the “truth” of Americanism with other truths, “pragmatic” Pluralism enters into the breach to denounce the practical, divisive effects of such an inquiry. It exhorts everyone to get his mind out of the clouds and focus it on something concrete, common-sensical and really helpful. Hence, the enemy of Americanism hears himself categorized as being simultaneously romantic, naïve, and cynical: an unmotivated, lazy, misanthropic wretch, eager to demoralize simple, virtuous, common-sensical people, and probably a totalitarian in the bargain. The result is to lower a blindfold over peoples’ eyes; to insist that they accept as unassailable doctrines what the Americanist writings claim America to be; to do so while denying that these are truly doctrines, but while also prohibiting the use of all the rational tools that would uncover the fraud which is at work. The only “rational” tool whose use the fideist permits in order to understand and “criticize” Americanism is the recitation of the tenets of Americanism themselves. And these, of course, offer it nothing but praise.

A second problem which needs to be underlined now is that, rather than providing peace and freedom, Americanism ensures the triumph of the kind of base, irrational will which destroys them. Why? Basically because of that disdain and even hatred for ideas and rational authority at work in Puritanism, in secularized Puritanism, and in an Anglo-Saxon mentality deprived of a, consistent Catholic direction. Supporters of Americanism refer us back to the Founders, a study of whom actually demonstrates much of the difficulty. James Madison, in the Federalist, speaks with confidence of America’s ability to secure peace due to the “multiplicity of factions” existing within its borders. He even argues that this multiplicity of factions be encouraged, since its encouragement will mean that no faction will ever be able to gain power over the others. A permanent war of all against all will check and balance each into a common nullity guaranteeing the continued maintenance of the existing public order (and private aristocracy).

This attitude presumes too much. For one thing, it presumes that a human society can, and perhaps even should, be built upon division, and not just division, but a struggle among the divided parts which will not be permitted a conclusion. The question is, of course, whether this would not in the long run cause the various groups struggling amongst themselves either to recognize the pointlessness of their struggle and unite in seeking some common oppressive goals or to adopt new, unforeseen tactics to assure their own unpalatable victory.

Consideration of this question leads us to another false presumption at work among the Founders and important in understanding the flaws in Madison’s argument: the sufficiency of the eighteenth century, Anglo-Saxon “common sense” view of reality to protect a public order which is also good. As stated above, this view of reality was itself shaped by that Puritan and secularized Puritan concept of life which understood men to be depraved, individual atomist at war with authority. Appreciation of the consequences of this concept among the Founders may well have been limited by an Anglo-Saxon propensity not to investigate ideas too seriously, by maintenance of many older external forms in the midst of negative change (like the Anglican Church herself), and by the remnants of Catholic or classical influences still at work in society. They may not have willed the consequences of these ideas, but their will is not the problem here. The question is whether Puritan and secularized Puritan ideas have logical consequences of the sort that I have indicated; consequences which other men may “will” to draw and apply to life.

And this, as we have seen, they do. The atomization of man and of human society multiplies factions further and further. The most common and successful of such willful factions are those which the American system was disposed to produce by its history (i.e., sɛҳuąƖ, commercial, and lunatic). Reason is itself rejected as a guide since that, too, is considered to be an oppressive authority. All of these factions are thrown back on their irrational wills to justify themselves and their life styles, while the meaning of “common sense” is expanded to permit them do so since their suppression could be “divisive” and disturb the peace. In a struggle of irrational wills, tactics will be used that might not have been “common-sensical” according to the Founders, but which are judged to be just fine in an atomistic world exposing people to perpetual temptations. A supporter of the Founders is reduced to insisting that this is not what they wanted—in other words, to an appeal to their will. An appeal to will even in their case is not surprising given that a rational probe of their understanding of “common sense” reveals the seeds of the same evils and destructive fruits which we see around us today. But in the struggle of the multiplicity of factions guided by irrational wills, the strongest triumphs, and the twentieth century factions are both stronger and more logical in their willfulness than those of the 1700’s. Of course, Americanists will never admit to the reality of what is happening around them. They will continue to refer back to what the Founders said and wrote, ignoring the factors which tell us what their judgments actually have meant in practice. They will sweep the truth under the rug for the sake of defending their fideistic faith, and they will thereby make impossible that daily search for acting justly which they claim is rendered unnecessary by the machine-like openness and constitutional guarantees of Pluralism.

Thirdly, Americanism destroys patriotism and the nation. Those who accept it and are truly interested in ideas will take its secularized Puritan elements seriously, and see it to be their patriotic duty to support anyone “hurt” by a United States which betrays its “mission” to set peoples free. They will, therefore, willingly aid outright enemies of the country in various parts of the globe and destroy its consistent friends, should they believe Pluralism to be invoked by the former and rejected by the latter. Despite horrendous strategic consequences, truly destructive to the concrete nation, American ideals and American purity must be honored! Meanwhile, Americans who understand something of what a nation truly means and who want to protect the United States and her legitimate self-interests in a traditional sense, are misled by Americanist influences into dangerous waters as well. Thus, for example, they presume that every other nation’s practical desires ought to bend to fit our own. For does not the United States, by definition, defend what is good? It might, on specific occasions. But even if it does, one must always recognize that there are also legitimate national differences which will last until the end of time, and it is precisely these distinctions which a true patriotic sense discerns and respects in other peoples. Sometimes, such Americans think that the only reason for our quarrel with the Soviet Union was our different political and social institutions—as though exaggerated Russian military power would have been a mere trifle without Marxism-Leninism! Americanism blinds them to the fact that nations fought wars before ideologies existed and will continue to do so should they ever disappear. And, finally, there are true patriots, who are also respectful of other nations’ integrity. They find, to their amazement, that the entire strength of the Americanist message is aimed against them and the expression of their real love of the land and concern for the independence of all nations. Why are they amazed? Because no one has pointed out the existence of Americanism to them.

The result is that Americanism makes us men without a country, just as it makes us men without an authoritative state, a network of real institutions with traditions and esprit de corps, men without a history. Americanism seeks to replace the nation with an ideology, patriotism with an ideological, fideisitic religion. But ideology cannot take the place of faith, the state, the city, the family and everything else of importance to national life. It cannot take the place of a real nation. And, hence, it leaves the American suspended in a limbo which the Americanist would have us believe is a model for the cosmos as a whole.

Finally, let us remember that this fideistic faith disguised as patriotism is a jealous thing, and cannot endure competition with real religion. Of course, it would never admit to being a problem for religion, just as it would never admit to being a problem for reason, precisely because it does not see itself as it actually is. Nevertheless, it works ferociously against any faith that contradicts it. It cannot rest until is sucks all substance out of opposing creeds. But operating in the subtle way that it does, it prefers to destroy by reinterpretation; by allowing and even encouraging the survival of its opponents, so long as they redefine their beliefs and goals along Pluralist, Americanist lines. And it was to find its most serious opponent in the Roman Catholic Church and its greatest victory in conquering and blindfolding her to her own collapse.

III. Americanism and the Catholic Church
Americanism was bound to react against Catholicism with peculiar virulence. Indeed, it was obliged to do so. Catholicism represented all that both major influences on the American Religion reproved. The Church condemned the doctrine of total depravity and the secular consequences stemming from it. She did not disdain the principle of authority, the value of community, the wonder of the arts and the glory of the human body. Hence, she did not hand them over to man’s sinful tendencies to be shaped willfully, but, rather, sought to guide them to their proper fulfillment. Rome saw no need to worship the American model of government. The Church was at home in the city. Her traditions were tied in with the heritage of the Greco-Roman polis and the brilliant culture of the medieval town. Moreover, Catholicism had long nourished a diversity of national cultures within that real (even if difficult to define) unity called Christendom. Harmony, in her mind, did not entail an end to ethnic differences nor a minimizing of the universal truth, nor an adulation of materialism. She was ready to sacrifice a cheap, narrowly-construed idea of peace at any price for the sake of obtaining the peace that surpasses all understanding. Other forces encountered by Americanism might embody one or two “erroneous” beliefs, easily defused and integrated into the gray, Pluralist dogma, but Catholicism was the enemy incarnate.

American animosity towards the Church was expressed in as many ways as there were personal reflections of the national soul. The brutish burned convents and churches in Philadelphia. Men of religion evoked images of Bloody Mary from Fox’s Book of Martyrs. They aroused congregations to sympathy for the supposed torments of captive nuns in New England convent dungeons. Politicos set to work in the Know-Nothings, the American Protection Association and the Ku Klux Klan. Intellectuals, cultivating what some have called the anti-semitism of the educated classes, delivered learned papers at Harvard and Yale on the inevitable conflict of Catholicism and human dignity. None of these “types” had to fear serious reprobation. Each was putting the national creed into action according to his peculiar gifts. If the enemy of the American Religion was incapable of being devoured, then it would have to be humiliated and destroyed.

Two distinct Catholic viewpoints regarding the best method of protecting the Church and Catholics in America were in obvious conflict by the latter half of the nineteenth century. One of these was convinced that the battle between Catholicism and American society was an unnecessary one. It has long been labeled the Americanist position. This title is a justifiable one, as shall become clear below, since supporters of the Americanist position gradually grew close to the Americanist faith described in the previous section. Three names stand out among its more significant proponents: Bishop John Keane of Richmond, sometime Rector of Catholic University; Msgr. Denis O’Connell of the North American College in Rome; and Bishop John Ireland of St. Paul. The opposing viewpoint took a much more critical attitude towards the possibilities of an American-Catholic rapprochement. It may simply be called the anti-Americanist outlook. Anti-Americanism had a very flexible set of supporters. Leaders of German-speaking Catholics frequently espoused it. So did several foreign faculty members at Catholic University. Bishops such as Corrigan of New York and McQuaid of Rochester were more comfortable with its skepticism than with the optimism of the Americanist school.

There are at least four good explanations for the development of the Americanist position. Two of these are “positive” in character in the sense of responding to real problems. Two are “negative” in that they reflect unfortunate preoccupations that ought to have been suppressed.

The two positive stimuli to the growth of Americanism were the desire for a true home and the awareness of nativist exploitation of the “alien” Catholics. Europe was far away, Americanists argued, unlikely ever to be seen again by the bulk of Catholic immigrants. The American government, American working conditions and American neighbors would provide the framework for their existence for the rest of their lives. Should wars come, American armies might demand their blood. Hence, the faster that they cut their ties with their lost European past, the sooner that they ceased viewing themselves as strangers in a strange land, the better for their tranquility, material prosperity and the peace of the Church. Hyphenated Americans would always be unhappy and disrespected Americans.

Two negative influences were present, however, in the form of an unhealthy reaction to America’s status as a mission country and in the particular ambitions of some members of one Catholic ethnic group—the Irish. Both of these demand a full and separate attention.

The United States was a mission country of enormous size underneath the supervision of Propaganda in Rome. Because it was a mission country, it required a vast amount of help from abroad in order to survive. How few remember today, for example, the fact that the American episcopacy was once heavily spiced with French prelates, and that seminary training in this country was subject to tremendous Gallic influence.

One of the difficulties of being a mission country is the fact that it is all too painfully clear that the center of things is far away. There are no sacred places. There are no confessors and martyrs or holy kings. There is no developed music or art or theology or any of the other hallmarks of a high Catholic civilization. Mission countries are often engaged in a race to cease being what they are and to arrive, so to speak, at the center of things. This, however, is a cuмbersome task and can—indeed, it must—take centuries if it is to be deeply rooted.

A people as “practical” and “results-oriented” as the Americans find slow movements impossible to tolerate. Americanists, sensitive to this mentality, were similar in spirit. Surely, good will and ingenuity ought to be able to make history move faster! What better way to speed it up than to find in the soul of America Catholic lessons about which the rest of the Mystical Body of Christ was ignorant? In other words, what more efficient means of ending one’s mission country status than by declaring the periphery to be the center! In this way, the remainder of the Church could be viewed as the true mission territory and the United States as its teacher.

The second negative influence is the more difficult one to discuss because it seems to be an indictment of an entire people, the Irish. It is not. Many Irish were among the most vigorous opponents of Americanism, and the problem that I am about to discuss may well have been an unconscious one for those who were not. Nevertheless, a complete understanding of Americanism as an historical phenomenon requires touching upon the Irish Question in a manner that some may find to be offensive.

American Catholics of German and French descent were generally of a higher material and cultural level than those who were not. The Germans, for example, had carefully planned their immigration, settled comfortably upon their arrival and often maintained their interest in the outward manifestations of Catholic high culture. Irish Catholics, persecuted for centuries by the English, could not do the same thing. Their only real advantage in the new homeland was the fact that they could speak its language. So long as the mission country status of the Church in the United States continued, along with its emphasis upon the glories of the past tradition, the French and Germans retained a closer tie with the center of things. As soon as that tradition began to weaken, however, and the star of America rose within the Church, then the Irish fortune might rise with it. The key to understanding the American “teachings” would be the English language, not cultivation, and in this endeavor the Germans and the French could be outmatched. Ironically, as some have pointed out, an Irish connection with Americanism would involve the Celts in a glorification of the “enemy” Anglo-Saxon achievement.

Just as positive and negative influences may be indicated in the growth of the Americanist attitude, a two-fold set of factors is responsible for the evolution of the opposing position. Hostility to Americanism was certainly due to fears of its effects upon the corpus of Catholic teachings and the practices of the faithful. It was also the product of a certain jealousy of the successes of the Americanist leaders in mainstream society in this country. Moreover, German ethnic pride and sense of cultural superiority may also have played their role irrespective of the substantive issues involved.

The Americanists were probably right in insisting upon the need for wholehearted Catholic involvement in American society. Catholicism does, after all, have a vision of full participation in all forms of community life. It is not healthy for Catholics to retreat from this vision. When they do so retreat, they have a tendency to create substitute communities that temporarily protect them from the reality around them but which cannot shut it out permanently. They become sectarian in their behavior, sometimes even psychologically ill, like so many Protestant cultists. When this retreat takes place within an already Protestant environment, such as that of the United States, the potential for madness is incalculable. The existence of a non-Catholic society is always a tragedy, and one which mutilates many of the best efforts to deal with it. It is conceivable that a complete victory of the anti-Americanists could have entailed the development of a true ghetto mentality with unpredictable heterodox side effects. It is also conceivable that it might have left the Church in the United States as a set of colonial churches dependent upon foreign governments and traditions, thus arousing quite rational nativist fears.

Nevertheless, the enthusiasm and the type of arguments with which the Americanists promoted the difficult enterprise of making contact with American society indicate their unsuitability for the task. It seems to be fairly clear that a desire to “fit in” to American life caused them to be very blithe about the dangers of “slippage” from the Faith;

Source:  http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/rao1.html

 
 
 
The 'War of Liberation': An Unmitigated Catholic Defeat
by John C. Rao


"This, also, is one of the steps that leads to Americanism."

~ Ernst Jünger, on seeing the effects of civilian bombing in Cologne in 1942 – Strahlungen (Heliopolis, 1949, p. 155)

"We have sustained an unmitigated defeat." This statement, made by Winston Churchill with reference to the effects on Britain of the Munich Conference of 1938, applies equally well to the situation of Catholics with respect to the current conflict in Iraq. For we, too, have sustained an unmitigated defeat through the application of the principles responsible for this "war of liberation," the full consequences of which the very near future will reveal to us. To make matters worse, this unmitigated defeat was a thoroughly predictable one, whose evils might have been attenuated if eyes had only remained opened and ears had heard what was clearly being stated by the proponents of conflict over the course of the last decade.

How does the fallout from the latest of the modern world’s innumerable "wars of liberation" make itself felt? One would be better advised to ask the question how it does not show its effects. With the most recent carnage of Catholic Christendom lying all around us, let me limit myself here to a ten-point Syllabus of Collateral Damage. This, admittedly, will need further elaboration to put the full horror of the present debacle into proper focus. I have no doubt that occasions for doing so will offer themselves unceasingly in the years to come. Nevertheless, an initially rather spartan statement of the perimeters of the problem serves a useful purpose as an introduction to a nightmare which is really just beginning.

Syllabus of Catholic Collateral Damage

Subjection to a Global Insistence Upon American Pluralism. American Pluralism is a pseudo-religion, disguised as a practical plan for stability and prosperity, which divides the world into the good (those who accept it) and the bad (those who do not). All actions of the good are virtuous; all those of the bad are wicked. In the past, American Pluralists were generally happy to protect the good by isolating the United States from the rest of the world. Now they overwhelmingly believe that the good can only be defended by transforming all the peoples of the globe into virtuous American Pluralists. The central doctrine of this pseudo-religion is "tolerance." It has no room for a real religion, like Catholicism, which is "divisive," will not "integrate itself" with all others in a universal creed of tolerance, and insists upon a substantive, transforming impact on political and social questions forbidden it by Pluralism;

Subjection to a Life that is a Living Death. Catholicism is open to all things natural, seeks to utilize the goods of the world to the greater glory of God, and gives life to individuals more abundantly than any of the ancients would ever have believed to be possible. American Pluralism offers a living death. It builds a Regime that despises theology, philosophy, history, and the great variety of serious, distinctive cultures that have been built up from a common commitment to the service of God. It sees these as disruptive of the only two "goods" that desicated pluralist culture is permitted to seek: marketing and consumption opportunities. It allows no scope for the development of the human mind and the human spirit beyond their application to a technological achievement used for dulling intellectual and spiritual perception. It breaks down, trivializes, stupefies, psychoanalyses, and, if need be, eliminates entirely anything that yearns for the elevation of the individual and all of nature ad maiorem Dei gloriam, exchanging it for a mess of pottage that it calls a banquet;

Subjection to the Triumph of the Will. Catholicism has been both history’s greatest defender of human reason as well as one of its most severe critics of man’s errors and unacceptable passions. It cannot accept that anti-rational Triumph of the Will which the modern proponents of the liberation of the "natural man" have espoused, from Rousseau to the National Socialists to supporters of abortion to capitalist imperialists. The American Pluralist Regime claims to have opposed the Triumph of the Will by combating Hitler, and it has used its role in the Second World War as proof positive that it can never be accused of any irrational, arbitrary nαzι-like actions of its own. And yet it is now, with its program for "making the world safe for Americans," more openly promoting, defending, and disdainfully laughing away criticisms of this violently anti-Catholic principle than any other force since 1945;

Subjection to Persecution Disguised as Freedom. Orthodox Catholicism is what it says it is, and fails only in so far as people do not live up to its message. We are now witnessing the complete victory of a message that has never been what it says that it is, and becomes even more of a lie when people do live up to its potential for evil. The definitions of freedom, democracy, popular liberation, and peace promoted by the American Pluralist Regime emerged out of a long history of anti-Catholicism and irrationalism. They ensure that the strongest "free" wills and passions dominate, forcing "the people" to express its joy at submission to them. Failure to indicate happiness over such a liberation is seen as a sign that the people has not yet had its consciousness raised to the perception of the difference of good and evil demanded by the strong, and is therefore not yet ready for democracy. These are not failures to live up to American Pluralist conceptions. This is what the American Regime, one of several socio-political by-products of revolutionary Enlightenment concepts, inevitably encourages. Its previous record of seeming cooperation with solid Catholic moral principles was nothing but an accidental, historical footnote, the product of the continuing influence of ideas, habits, and a "common sense" that the beliefs of the Regime were unceasingly working to break down. Unfortunately, many people who are used to the Regime’s temporary appropriation and distortion of the Christian concept of concern for the dignity of the human person have been propagandized into arguing that just such a noble motive lies behind its current revel with Machtpolitik. They are doomed to disillusionment or self-deception. Yes, on the one hand, Regime spokesmen do continue to express shock over the failure of the critic to appreciate the "freedom" and the "peace that surpasseth all understanding" which they claim that they are bringing to suffering lands. On the other, when this claim is challenged on the philosophical level, they mockingly retreat to an anti-intellectual admission that they are actually "pragmatists" seeking the practical satisfaction of every man’s "real" desires. Like true cynics, they then point to the gradual, willing acceptance by other former opponents of the Regime of all of its many supposed blessings. But what they are truly calling attention to is the tragic failure of long-suffering individuals and peoples to resist the systematic and incessant freedom to market sin that these seducers have insisted upon as their natural birthright. It is this "saying yes to Original Sin" that is seized upon as proof of the "natural longings" of mankind which the Pluralist Regime does nothing but charitably – and profitably – fulfill. Some of the Regime’s proponents have now abandoned all moral pretensions entirely. They openly assert that the strength of America gives it the right to prohibit all those who are weaker from defending themselves, and then brazenly march that principle into battle to make the world safe for seduction;

The Full Revelation of Catholic Division and Impotence. The supposed Great Renewal of the last half century has, in reality, been the period of the swiftest collapse of Catholicism in history. This is not a surprise to critics of American Pluralism, since the Church, through this false renewal, did nothing more than adopt a version of the Regime’s vision as her guide. She thus suffered all the inevitable consequences of manipulation by "free" men of passion and will, the uncovering of some of whose crimes in the immediate past have weakened her ability to speak the truth with any psychological credibility among the masses of the Catholic population. Recently, the Church has shown some desire to reiterate her understanding of what constitutes a just as opposed to an unjust war, and this in order to try to block the perpetration of other criminally willful actions. Nevertheless, she has merely demonstrated once again the confused witness to the Apostolic Tradition generated by her "renewed" Faith. Instead of providing a forthright condemnation of a blatant case of aggression unleashed by application of the principle of the Triumph of the Will, she has founded much of her opposition to the Iraqi War on her fears for damage to the same Universal Pluralist Religion promoted by the Regime. Moreover, the statements and eloquent silences of her pro-war priests, chaplains, and bishops have again exposed that division and impotence which is her chief contemporary hallmark;

The Confirmation of the Existence of an Independent American Catholic Church. Domestic support for the "war of liberation" has confirmed the fact that many believers in this country prefer to be part of a national Catholic sect rather than members of an international Church which may have to criticize even the American Regime. The idea that the One True System and Way of Life of the only nation allowed to defend itself has actually come under attack by Rome is inconceivable to them. Apparently, Satan himself is thought to be impotent against the power for good of the American Pluralist Regime and its Constitution. All other nations and peoples are subject to error. The Regime, by definition, is not. A system of checks and balances and Pluralism is thereby shown to be much more sacramentally effective than grace in fighting evil, and its defense becomes an infallible theology of liberation. One wonders whether western dating should not begin with 1776 instead of with the birth of Christ, since true salvation came into the world only with the benefits offered through the national pseudo-religion;

Revelation of the American Catholic Preferential Option for Parochialism. The treasury of Catholic doctrine and Church History lie open for all to investigate to understand how an individual and a whole people can be led astray. Many American Catholics have demonstrated a disdain for utilizing this treasury, and a preference for burying its wisdom under the mass of parochial judgments and interests guiding the Regime. This has seduced them, among other things, into the American Pluralist obsession with the Second World War as the sole historical subject worth studying; in fact, into its treatment of that conflict as a pressing current event. Our Regime requires such rapt attention both to stigmatize all of its opponents as sympathizers with those nαzιs whom the freedom loving Pluralist system (along with the freedom loving Stalinist one) battled, as well as to keep people’s attention away from living threats which are real and imminent. While Catholic friends of the Regime speak of a desperate need to heed the lessons of Mein Kampf and fight the crucial fight against dead Hitlerians, the entire neo-conservative plan for rearranging the world for the benefit of power-obsessed Israeli statesmen, oil tycoons, and American imperialists backed by Protestant Millenarianists is neglected. Mein Kampf is, after all, a big book and takes a long time to read. It allows no leisure for secondary, contemporary, life and death issues. Presumably there will be a chance to fight the battle for the survival of the Catholic Church and the real achievements of western culture later, once both lie prostrate, with the Regime as the sole guide to determining what it is that both of them mean. Or, perhaps that war can be delayed until a day of orthodox Catholic triumph, when everyone can finally shake his head in safety and disbelief, self-righteously wondering why enough good men did not stand up for truth at a time when it was difficult to do so;

American Catholic Preference for Anti-Catholic Leadership. But why should the Regime and its Pluralist vision not be the sole Catholic guides? Many American Catholics have shown that they prefer anti-Catholics as the accepted spokesmen for Catholic doctrine and tradition. After all, if the Regime infallibly and more effectively fights evil than anything professedly Catholic, God is on its side, and its leaders its trustworthy servants. Apparently there is no need to feel humiliated by the disdain shown by American Pluralists for Catholicism if one thinks that that Regime and its proponents better represent it in the first place;

The Use of Catholic Corruption to Attack the Healthy Church. Catholics who believe everything that the national religion of Pluralism teaches have shown a shameful willingness to call up the failings of the Church to defend their support for an anti-Catholic war. The admitted failures of the false Renewal are used to justify blind obedience to Machtpolitik Pluralism, just as an English Catholic might have used the corruption of Pope Clement VII to bless the actions of Henry VIII, a "traditionalist" in practically all ways save one. One rotted fruit of erroneous modern ideas is thus loudly lamented to direct attention away from the stench of another being sneaked through the back door. It is becoming ever more tragically clear that Catholics will be among the chief propagandists for the Regime’s worldwide exaltation of the Triumph of the Will, and the prison of serious peoples constructed by its victory;

The Shaming of the Concept of the Crusade. The Church never justified Crusading by claiming the preventive right to attack and convert an opponent. She argued that she was defending Christian lands from an enemy assault. Crusades have, however, been misused by men and groups for their own purposes, God’s name being called upon to cover their clearly self-interested goals. In 1911, Italian Catholics eager to find ways of fitting into a Kingdom dominated by Liberals harassed by neo-pagan Nationalists succuмbed to the temptation to think of a colonial war versus the Ottoman Empire in Libya as a "Crusade" against the Moslems. Many German and French bishops, despite the position of the pope, described the First World War as an "obviously" just Crusade against erring criminals concerning which no upstanding Catholic could entertain any doubts. All were wrong. These sins of her children have rebounded, indirectly, to the shame of the innocent Church. And now many American Catholics have fallen prey to this same self-serving temptation, treating the current revolutionary "war of liberation" as a Crusade. They are trying to baptize a conflict for a pluralist Regime that would have horrified both a militant St. Louis IX and a missionary St. Francis.

Unfortunately, people generally consider "winning" to be a sufficient argument in favor of the justice of a given cause. Most postwar westerners accepted the justice of the victory of the United States and the Soviet Union against nαzι Germany simply because these "freedom-loving" allies had won. American Pluralism has defeated Marxism-Leninism, and this convinces the masses of the population of its superiority more than any of its ideas or lack thereof. Victory in Iraq will be overwhelmingly construed, at least in the Homeland, as the conquest of evil by good.

But the Regime is not good. It is the opposite of God: it is not what it says it is. Its special horror lies in the fact that it provides part of what it offers, like sin, under the guise of good, and for our ultimate destruction. It does not even have the "fail safe" mechanism of the Soviet system, which was so root and branch flawed that it almost immediately broke down everything that it touched. The Pluralist beast seems to deliver what it claims, but it does so like a thick but artificial drink, yielding its fluid in abundance until one reaches the bottom of the glass, when the satisfying liquid comes suddenly to an end, and we pay the inevitable price of having been badly nourished by something causing us long term harm.

Earthly victory ought not to impress a Catholic. We follow a religion which draws permanent supernatural victory from transitory, natural defeat. Recognition of the hard realities stemming from adverse historical conditions has frequently been the springboard for long term Catholic revival. It causes us to see the depth of the trouble into which we have been plunged and to react against it. Hard realities are now visible to all except the ideologically blinded. We have indeed sustained an unmitigated earthly defeat. It is only the logic of Faith, Hope, and Charity that will give us the key to escape from the Prison of Peoples in which the Regime has incarcerated us. The real renewal will emerge from the war for liberation that they alone can unleash.

April 11, 2003

John C. Rao [send him mail], D.Phil., Oxford University, is an Associate Professor of History at St. John’s University, and Director of the Roman Forum and the Dietrich von Hildebrand Institute.

Copyright © 2003 LewRockwell.com

       
 
 
 

sorry for only one writer right now, when get time, will include other voices on this topic, besides Dr. Rao.

in meanwhile, audio by him:

http://www.keepthefaith.org/searchResult_speakers.aspx?manufacturer=17

Oh my, I must have hit a nerve with you, no offense.

Belloc, I am a slow reader, if I start reading all that, you won't hear from me for a few days, maybe that was your plan.   :pop:

go to:

http://www.advancedchristianity.com/Pages/MPC/MPC_Mp3%20Files.htm

listen to Bishop Williamsons talk-in multiple parts-he does not per se address americanism, but his comemnts on NWO, USA,etc are on the mark,esp in light of prophecy.

a bit of an aside, but:

SOURCE:  


Material Success
 The American businessman was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied only a little while. The American then asked why didn't he stay out longer and catch more fish?

The Mexican said he had enough to support his family's immediate needs. The American then asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"

The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life, señor."

The American scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution.

"You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise."

The Mexican fisherman asked, "But señor, how long will this all take?" To which the American replied, "15-20 years."

"But what then, señor?"

The American laughed and said that's the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.

"Millions, señor? Then what?"

The American said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."
-- Anonymous
 

SOURCE:
http://www.christorchaos.com/AnotherVictimofAmericanism.htm
 
   
 
                    August 27, 2009
Another Victim of Americanism
by Thomas A. Droleskey
The heresy of Americanism, which is one of the fundamental building blocks of Modernism, has led so many Catholics, especially those in public life, in the United States of America to subordinate the truths of the Faith to the exigencies of electoral politics, viewing the Church through the filters of pluralism rather than viewing the world through the eyes of the Holy Faith.

The late Joseph Patrick Kennedy, whose youngest son, Edward Moore Kennedy, died early yesterday morning, Wednesday, August 26, 2009, was intent on seeing one of his sons rise to become become the first Catholic President of the United States of America. Vital to this effort, of course, was convincing just enough Protestant voters in key swing states that Catholics were loyal first to the Constitution of the United States of America, accepting the its premises of the separation of Church and State and religious liberty just as readily as Protestants themselves. This was one of the key goals of the address that Joseph Kennedy's oldest surviving son, United States Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy, gave to a group of Protestant religious broadcasters in Houston, Texas, on September 12, 1960, the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary:

I want a Chief Executive whose public acts are responsible to all groups and obligated to none--who can attend any ceremony, service or dinner his office may appropriately require of him--and whose fulfillment of his Presidential oath is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual or obligation.

This is the kind of America I believe in--and this is the kind I fought for in the South Pacific, and the kind my brother died for in Europe. No one suggested then that we may have a "divided loyalty," that we did "not believe in liberty," or that we belonged to a disloyal group that threatened the "freedoms for which our forefathers died."

And in fact this is the kind of America for which our forefathers died--when they fled here to escape religious test oaths that denied office to members of less favored churches--when they fought for the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom--and when they fought at the shrine I visited today, the Alamo. For side by side with Bowie and Crockett died McCafferty and Bailey and Carey--but no one knows whether they were Catholic or not. For there was no religious test at the Alamo.

I ask you tonight to follow in that tradition--to judge me on the basis of my record of 14 years in Congress--on my declared stands against an Ambassador to the Vatican, against unconstitutional aid to parochial schools, and against any boycott of the public schools (which I have attended myself)--instead of judging me on the basis of these pamphlets and publications we all have seen that carefully select quotations out of context from the statements of Catholic church leaders, usually in other countries, frequently in other centuries, and always omitting, of course, the statement of the American Bishops in 1948 which strongly endorsed church-state separation, and which more nearly reflects the views of almost every American Catholic.

I do not consider these other quotations binding upon my public acts--why should you? But let me say, with respect to other countries, that I am wholly opposed to the state being used by any religious group, Catholic or Protestant, to compel, prohibit, or persecute the free exercise of any other religion. And I hope that you and I condemn with equal fervor those nations which deny their Presidency to Protestants and those which deny it to Catholics. And rather than cite the misdeeds of those who differ, I would cite the record of the Catholic Church in such nations as Ireland and France--and the independence of such statesmen as Adenauer and De Gaulle.

But let me stress again that these are my views--for contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters--and the church does not speak for me.

Whatever issue may come before me as President--on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject--I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.

But if the time should ever come--and I do not concede any conflict to be even remotely possible--when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious public servant would do the same.

But I do not intend to apologize for these views to my critics of either Catholic or Protestant faith--nor do I intend to disavow either my views or my church in order to win this election.

If I should lose on the real issues, I shall return to my seat in the Senate, satisfied that I had tried my best and was fairly judged. But if this election is decided on the basis that 40 million Americans lost their chance of being President on the day they were baptized, then it is the whole nation that will be the loser, in the eyes of Catholics and non-Catholics around the world, in the eyes of history, and in the eyes of our own people.

But if, on the other hand, I should win the election, then I shall devote every effort of mind and spirit to fulfilling the oath of the Presidency--practically identical, I might add, to the oath I have taken for 14 years in the Congress. For without reservation, I can "solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution . . . so help me God. (Address of Senator John F. Kennedy to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association.)

 

The American bishops had indeed endorsed the thesis of "separation of Church and State" in 1948, thereby making a mockery of the consistent condemnation of this falsehood by one pope after another, including by Pope Saint Pius X in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906:

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it.

 

The American bishops did not consider this reaffirmation of the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church to bind their consciences. Neither did then Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Neither did Senator Kennedy's youngest sibling, the recently deceased United States Senator Edward Moore Kennedy. Neither do the lords of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, including Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. The Americanist bishops and the Kennedys and the conciliar "pontiffs" have embraced the falsehoods of separation of Church and State and religious liberty as they have rejected the necessity of restoring the Social Reign of Christ the King by seeking the conversion of men and their nations to the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order.

Pope Pius XI explained in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922, that the "quotations" rejected by John F. Kennedy and the Americanist Catholic bishops of his day--and by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI in our own day--do indeed bind the consciences of all men at all times without any exception or qualification whatsoever:

Many believe in or claim that they believe in and hold fast to Catholic doctrine on such questions as social authority, the right of owning private property, on the relations between capital and labor, on the rights of the laboring man, on the relations between Church and State, religion and country, on the relations between the different social classes, on international relations, on the rights of the Holy See and the prerogatives of the Roman Pontiff and the Episcopate, on the social rights of Jesus Christ, Who is the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord not only of individuals but of nations. In spite of these protestations, they speak, write, and, what is more, act as if it were not necessary any longer to follow, or that they did not remain still in full force, the teachings and solemn pronouncements which may be found in so many docuмents of the Holy See, and particularly in those written by Leo XIII, Pius X, and Benedict XV.

There is a species of moral, legal, and social modernism which We condemn, no less decidedly than We condemn theological modernism.

It is necessary ever to keep in mind these teachings and pronouncements which We have made; it is no less necessary to reawaken that spirit of faith, of supernatural love, and of Christian discipline which alone can bring to these principles correct understanding, and can lead to their observance. This is particularly important in the case of youth, and especially those who aspire to the priesthood, so that in the almost universal confusion in which we live they at least, as the Apostle writes, will not be "tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive." (Ephesians iv, 14) (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

 

"It is necessary ever to keep in mind these teachings and pronouncements" means that it is necessary ever to keep in mind these teachings and pronouncements, you Americanists and conciliarists out there in cyberspace. The Kennedys and their Americanist enablers in the Catholic hierarchy before the "Second" Vatican Council were contemptuous of these teachings and pronouncements. So are the conciliarists today, starting with Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI (see Ratzinger's War Against Catholicism).

Then Senator John F. Kennedy's speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association was an important harbinger of the counterfeit church of conciliarism's "official" "reconciliation" with the principles of Modernity. The speech also revealed that John F. Kennedy had no understanding of the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church, and that he was not interested in learning anything about this teaching.

An analysis of Kennedy's view of religion, written by an author who was favorably disposed to the "Second" Vatican Council, provides some interesting insights in this regard:

Though Kennedy’s Houston speech surprised some Catholics, it was consistent with his upbringing and cultural influences.  Catholics may have considered Kennedy one of their own, but he was closer in his views and lifestyle to Boston Brahmins than ethnic Catholics.  His biographers have consistently chronicled his detachment from his Catholic faith.  Groomed for secular success from an early age, Kennedy learned the faith from his mother but watched his playboy millionaire father routinely flout its precepts.  He did not grow up in the Catholic ghetto or attend Catholic schools, except for one year.  He was a self-described “Harvard man” who, according to his chief speechwriter, did not care “a whit for theology.”  Sorensen once said that in 11 years of working together, Kennedy had never shared his views on man’s relation to God.  That would not have surprised Boston Archbishop and Kennedy family friend Richard Cardinal Cushing, who openly acknowledged that Kennedy was never very religious.  Nor would it have surprised Jackie Kennedy, who reportedly told journalist Arthur Krock that the religious controversy surrounding her husband mystified her because, she said, “Jack is such a poor Catholic.”

Many biographers suggest that Kennedy’s religious views were essentially Deist, like those of Jefferson, the founding father he quoted so often.  Kennedy believed in God and attended Mass regularly, but he was more attracted to the American ideal of the independent, self-made man than the Catholic ideal of the humble, obedient servant of God.  As Lawrence Fuchs notes in his book, John F. Kennedy and American Catholicism (Meredith, 1967), many of Kennedy’s favorite writers had been zealous anti-Catholics and one of his favorite poems, William Ernest Henley’s “Invictus,” reads more like an agnostic manifesto than a Christian one.  In the poem, Henley thanks “whatever gods may be, for my unconquerable soul,” and concludes with these lines: “It matters not how straight the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.”

Kennedy’s political rhetoric sometimes echoed these sentiments.  He frequently sang the praises of liberalism, which he defined as “faith in man’s ability … reason and judgment” and he identified the human mind as “the source of our invention and our ideas.”  Rather than a personal God intimately involved in and concerned with the affairs of his creatures, Kennedy’s God kept his distance from the world he had created.  As Kennedy told one audience: “Our problems are manmade – therefore they can be solved by man.  And man can be as big as he wants.  No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.”  In Kennedy’s theology, there seemed to be little emphasis on the fallen world, or original sin, or the radical reliance on God’s mercy and grace that has always been a hallmark of Christian orthodoxy.  

 

Kennedy’s innovation was not merely his Deist ideas about God.  After all, several of America’s founding fathers appear to have held similar views as they promoted a civil religion that draws upon religious faith to shore up public morality.  Kennedy’s rhetoric marked a departure from this notion of public religion and the beginning of the end of the public consensus about the role of religion in American democracy.  His exaltation of man as the measure of all things and reason as the key to a perfected world left little role for the God invoked in America’s founding docuмents.  When America’s founding fathers asserted self-evident truths about the equal rights and dignity of all people, and entrusted their grand experiment in democratic rule to divine Providence, they were making theological claims compatible with the traditional Christian and Jєωιѕн conception of the human person and his relationship with God.  Those claims were not exhaustive; they did not enumerate the many and varied views that Americans held about God and man.  But they conformed to the basic tenets of ʝʊdɛօ-Christian tradition and advanced a vision that most Americans accepted as true.  Kennedy’s rhetoric diverged from that framework, and the strict compartmentalization between faith and politics that he championed contrasted with the traditional Christian ideal of a public servant whose faith guides and informs his political decisions. (Colleen Carroll Campbell, The Enduring Costs of John F. Kennedy's Compromise)

 

Although the author has little understanding of the fact that the heretical views of God held by the American founding fathers were no basis for anything other than the social disorder and rank statism that are upon us at this time, she did accurately assess the state of John F. Kennedy's semi-Pelagianism, the belief that the human being is more or less self-redemptive and can "solve" whatever problem comes his way, a belief that is at the heart of the naturalistic ideology of liberalism. John F. Kennedy's liberalism, much like that of his recently decently younger brother Edward Moore Kennedy, viewed Catholic teaching in a selective manner, a key component of Americanism, something Pope Leo XIII made clear in Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae, January 22, 1899:

But, beloved son, in this present matter of which we are speaking, there is even a greater danger and a more manifest opposition to Catholic doctrine and discipline in that opinion of the lovers of novelty, according to which they hold such liberty should be allowed in the Church, that her supervision and watchfulness being in some sense lessened, allowance be granted the faithful, each one to follow out more freely the leading of his own mind and the trend of his own proper activity. They are of opinion that such liberty has its counterpart in the newly given civil freedom which is now the right and the foundation of almost every secular state.

In the apostolic letters concerning the constitution of states, addressed by us to the bishops of the whole Church, we discussed this point at length; and there set forth the difference existing between the Church, which is a divine society, and all other social human organizations which depend simply on free will and choice of men.

It is well, then, to particularly direct attention to the opinion which serves as the argument in behalf of this greater liberty sought for and recommended to Catholics.

It is alleged that now the Vatican decree concerning the infallible teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff having been proclaimed that nothing further on that score can give any solicitude, and accordingly, since that has been safeguarded and put beyond question a wider and freer field both for thought and action lies open to each one. But such reasoning is evidently faulty, since, if we are to come to any conclusion from the infallible teaching authority of the Church, it should rather be that no one should wish to depart from it, and moreover that the minds of all being leavened and directed thereby, greater security from private error would be enjoyed by all. And further, those who avail themselves of such a way of reasoning seem to depart seriously from the over-ruling wisdom of the Most High-which wisdom, since it was pleased to set forth by most solemn decision the authority and supreme teaching rights of this Apostolic See-willed that decision precisely in order to safeguard the minds of the Church's children from the dangers of these present times.

These dangers, viz., the confounding of license with liberty, the passion for discussing and pouring contempt upon any possible subject, the assumed right to hold whatever opinions one pleases upon any subject and to set them forth in print to the world, have so wrapped minds in darkness that there is now a greater need of the Church's teaching office than ever before, lest people become unmindful both of conscience and of duty.

We, indeed, have no thought of rejecting everything that modern industry and study has produced; so far from it that we welcome to the patrimony of truth and to an ever-widening scope of public well-being whatsoever helps toward the progress of learning and virtue. Yet all this, to be of any solid benefit, nay, to have a real existence and growth, can only be on the condition of recognizing the wisdom and authority of the Church.

 

The Kennedys, harbingers of conciliarism, sought counsel from leading conciliar revolutionaries as early as 1964 to position themselves to be able to support various moral evils such as abortion and contraception while laying claim to remaining "Catholics" in "good standing" nevertheless:

In some cases, church leaders actually started providing "cover" for Catholic pro-choice politicians who wanted to vote in favor of abortion rights. At a meeting at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport, Mass., on a hot summer day in 1964, the Kennedy family and its advisers and allies were coached by leading theologians and Catholic college professors on how to accept and promote abortion with a "clear conscience."

The former Jesuit priest Albert Jonsen, emeritus professor of ethics at the University of Washington, recalls the meeting in his book "The Birth of Bioethics" (Oxford, 2003). He writes about how he joined with the Rev. Joseph Fuchs, a Catholic moral theologian; the Rev. Robert Drinan, then dean of Boston College Law School; and three academic theologians, the Revs. Giles Milhaven, Richard McCormick and Charles Curran, to enable the Kennedy family to redefine support for abortion.

 

Mr. Jonsen writes that the Hyannisport colloquium was influenced by the position of another Jesuit, the Rev. John Courtney Murray, a position that "distinguished between the moral aspects of an issue and the feasibility of enacting legislation about that issue." It was the consensus at the Hyannisport conclave that Catholic politicians "might tolerate legislation that would permit abortion under certain circuмstances if political efforts to repress this moral error led to greater perils to social peace and order."

Father Milhaven later recalled the Hyannisport meeting during a 1984 breakfast briefing of Catholics for a Free Choice: "The theologians worked for a day and a half among ourselves at a nearby hotel. In the evening we answered questions from the Kennedys and the Shrivers. Though the theologians disagreed on many a point, they all concurred on certain basics . . . and that was that a Catholic politician could in good conscience vote in favor of abortion." (WSJ.com - Opinion: How Support for Abortion Became Kennedy Dogma.)

 

That's quite a cast of dissenting Catholics, is it not? "Father Death," Robert Drinan. Charles Curran, the supporter of contraception. Richard McCormick, the support of the false moral theology known as proportionalism, the belief that a preponderance of "good" motives and extenuating circuмstances can make an otherwise objective moral evil act licit to pursue. The noted dissenter Joseph Fuchs. Quite a cast of characters, gathered to help the Kennedy clan support baby-killing under cover of the civil law. And there are still priests and presbyters catering to these people who are unrepentant in their support of one moral evil after another. Some of priests and presbyters indemnified Edward Moore Kennedy right until the point of his death and, sadly, will continue to do so for years after his death. This is nothing other than the legacy of Americanism and its progeny, conciliarism.

Although it was another nine years before United States Senator Edward Moore Kennedy would embrace a woman's "right" to "choose" to kill her baby in the aftermath of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the cases of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, January 22, 1973, the last surviving son of Joseph Patrick and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy became a full-throated supporter of baby-killing and, ultimately, of the "right" of persons of the same gender engaged in perverse sins against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments to "marry." Edward Moore Kennedy spent the last thirty-six years of his life, therefore, as a champion of the very thing that caused Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to suffer in His Sacred Humanity and that caused His Most Blessed Mother's Immaculate Heart to be pierced through and through with those Seven Swords of Sorrow: Sin. Sin the basis of personal and social disorder. But is the promotion of sin under cover of law that is Edward Moore Kennedy's most enduring "legacy," such as it is.

Conciliarists, of course, cannot mention such "harsh" realities in the aftermath of a political "giant's" death. Thus it is that the conciliar "archbishop" of Boston, Sean "Cardinal' O'Malley, who said six months ago that the crimes of the Third Reich against adherents of the тαℓмυd were the worst in human history (see No Crime Is Worse Than Deicide), issued the following statement following Edward Moore Kennedy's death from brain cancer yesterday:

Today we mourn the passing of Senator Edward M. Kennedy and we extend our heartfelt prayers and sincere condolences to his wife Victoria and their children, Kara, Edward, Patrick, Curran and Caroline. Senator Kennedy was blessed with a dedicated and loving family who stood by his side, particularly during the past year as he faced his illness with courage, dignity and strength.

We join with his colleagues in Congress and the people of Massachusetts in reflecting on his life and his commitment to public service. For nearly half a century, Senator Kennedy was often a champion for the poor, the less fortunate and those seeking a better life. Across Massachusetts and the nation, his legacy will be carried on through the lives of those he served.

We pray for the repose of his soul and that his family finds comfort and consolation in this difficult time. (Cardinal O'Malley mourns Kennedy death)

 

A champion of the poor, the less fortunate and those seeking a better life? How was this so? Edward Moore Kennedy believed in the enslavement of the poor and the less fortunate to one failed government subsidy program after another in full violation of the Natural Law principle of subsidiarity enunciated so clearly by Pope Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno, May 15, 1931. And please tell me who are more poor and who are more unfortunate than the innocent preborn whose lives were treated with such utter contempt by Edward Moore Kennedy once he abandoned his pro-life position in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's in the cases of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton? Edward Moore Kennedy championed the right of women to to have their innocent preborn babies suctioned to death or burned to death or carved up to death from the first moment of conception to the day of their birth. It was all a matter of "choice" for Edward Moore Kennedy. Just another day at the conciliar office for Sean "Cardinal" O'Malley, O.F.M., Cap.

Yes, the big, brave Sean O'Malley went after the easy target, Bishop Richard Williamson, to cater to the ancient enemies of the Catholic Church. This conciliar reprobate, who has contempt for the Immemorial Mass of Tradition, believes that a man who has promoted things repugnant to the peace and happiness of eternity has left us a "legacy" worth continuing. The Catholic Church begs to differ with Sean O'Malley:

The more closely the temporal power of a nation aligns itself with the spiritual, and the more it fosters and promotes the latter, by so much the more it contributes to the conservation of the commonwealth. For it is the aim of the ecclesiastical authority by the use of spiritual means, to form good Christians in accordance with its own particular end and object; and in doing this it helps at the same time to form good citizens, and prepares them to meet their obligations as members of a civil society. This follows of necessity because in the City of God, the Holy Roman Catholic Church, a good citizen and an upright man are absolutely one and the same thing. How grave therefore is the error of those who separate things so closely united, and who think that they can produce good citizens by ways and methods other than those which make for the formation of good Christians. For, let human prudence say what it likes and reason as it pleases, it is impossible to produce true temporal peace and tranquillity by things repugnant or opposed to the peace and happiness of eternity. (Silvio Cardinal Antoniano, quoted by Pope Pius XI in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929.)

 

Alas, no one has a "right" to "choose" to do that which is evil, no less to sanction evil under cover of the civil law or to promote it in every aspect of popular culture. One has the ability to choose to do evil. One has no moral right to do so. A Catholic in public life has the obligation to defend the binding nature of the precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law as they have been entrusted by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ exclusively to the authority of His Catholic Church for their eternal safekeeping and infallible explication without any deviation or exception or qualification whatsoever in any circuмstance.

No Catholic can "separate" his allegedly "private" religious beliefs from his public duties. As I pointed out at the New York State Right to Life Party convention in 1986 when giving my acceptance address following my nomination to be the party's candidate for lieutenant governor of the State of New York:

"Can you imagine someone saying that he is personally opposed to racism or anti-Semitism or to the killing of blacks or Jєωs, but that he would never 'impose' his beliefs upon others? The 'mainstream media' would condemn such absurd assertions with great delight. Ah, it is permissible, though, for a Catholic such as Governor Mario Matthew Cuomo to say that he is 'personally opposed" to abortion, but that he cannot 'impose' his beliefs upon the people of the State of New York. Our Lord really meant it when he said that 'He who is ashamed Me of My doctrine before men, I will be ashamed of before My Father in Heaven.'" We must call men such as Mario Matthew Cuomo to account for their betrayal of the eternal truths of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law."

 

Pope Leo XIII, faced with similar absurdities at the end of the Nineteenth Century, dealt with the sophistry of the "I'm personally opposed" approach to social evils in one simple paragraph in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885:

Hence, lest concord be broken by rash charges, let this be understood by all, that the integrity of Catholic faith cannot be reconciled with opinions verging on naturalism or rationalism, the essence of which is utterly to do away with Christian institutions and to install in society the supremacy of man to the exclusion of God. Further, it is unlawful to follow one line of conduct in private life and another in public, respecting privately the authority of the Church, but publicly rejecting it; for this would amount to joining together good and evil, and to putting man in conflict with himself; whereas he ought always to be consistent, and never in the least point nor in any condition of life to swerve from Christian virtue.

 

As expected, however, many in the "mainstream" media associated with the counterfeit church of conciliarism are reporting the late Edward Moore "Teddy" Kennedy's support for baby-killing and contraception and Federal funding of fetal tissue experimentation and the "right" of those engaged in perversity to "marry" in light of how he allegedly "stood firmly" on the side of the "church" on such issues "immigration reform to the minimum wage:"

 

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who died late Aug. 25 at the age of 77, stood firmly on the side of the Catholic Church on a wide range of issues from immigration reform to the minimum wage during his 47 years as a U.S. senator from Massachusetts.

But the youngest son of one of the nation's most famous Catholic families ran into criticism from leaders of the U.S. Catholic Church for his stand on abortion. He opposed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, supported Roe v. Wade and was a chief sponsor of legislation to limit protests outside abortion clinics and to permit the use of federal funds for research projects using fetal tissue. (CNS STORY: Ted Kennedy, longtime senator)

 

The apostasies of conciliarism are on full display in these two brief paragraphs.

Edward Moore Kennedy is portrayed as having "stood firmly on the side of the Catholic Church on a wide range of issues from immigration reform to the minimum wage," thus convey to the reader that the Catholic Church has immutable "views" on immigration reform and the minimum wage. She does not. These are matters about which men of good will can disagree legitimately as there is nothing received from the hand of God about the nature of "immigration reform," especially given the fact that nations have the right as found in the Natural Law to secure their borders and to enact and enforce just laws to regulation migration through those borders.

Similarly, the Catholic Church does indeed insist that workers be paid a living wage (which is not a monetary amount but a sum that will enable a breadwinner, usually the father of a family, to support his wife and children without forcing his wife go to work), the Church does not condemn those of her children who might disagree as to what constitutes a just wage at a given point in time. These are maters of prudential judgment wherein fallen creatures attempt to apply the principles of Catholic Social Teaching in the concrete circuмstances of life. Men of good will are free to take a variety of positions on these issues as long as they keep in mind the greater good of souls and as long as they attempt to be faithful to the just bounds described by our true popes in their social encyclical letters, which emphasized the fact that heads of households with families are to be paid differently than those who are unmarried or who are married without children.

The Catholic News Service report, however, makes it appear as though there is a moral equivalency between these issues on which men of good will may disagree and that of baby-killing under cover of the civil law. There is no such moral equivalency. Very few of those in the world of the counterfeit church of conciliarism seem capable of realizing that abortion (willful murder) is one of the four crimes that cry out to Heaven for vengeance. One cannot support the direct, intentional taking of any innocent human life, including preborn human life, and remain a member of the Catholic Church in good standing. No nation that permits the slaughter of the innocent preborn will be "blessed" by the true God of Revelation, and nations that permit such a genocide of babies will find itself suffering from economic crises that require it to encourage immigration in order to make up for the deficit in its own population caused by legal sanctioning and widespread use of contraception and by the carnage produced by its abortuaries.

One can support abortion and remain a member in good standing of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, where the medicine of solemn excommunication is rarely used as a remedial means to cure defections from the Faith represented by the support of crimes that carry with them an automatic, self-imposed penalty of excommunication. Imagine the good that could have done for the late Edward Moore Kennedy's immortal soul had the conciliar officials had the true Charity for his soul, for which Our Blessed Lord shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood to redeem, by solemnly pronouncing that Kennedy that Kennedy had excommunicated himself by his pertinacious support of baby-killing under cover of the civil law.

Conciliar officials tolerated Edward Moore Kennedy's scandalous defiance of the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural during his life. They said nothing as Kennedy used the weight of his committee assignments in the United States Senate to promote candidates for the Federal judiciary who, like himself, support baby-killing and other moral evils under cover of the civil law. Kennedy practiced some of ugliest, meanest forms of demagoguery imaginable to denounce candidates for the Federal judiciary who were suspected of wanting to reverse the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the cases of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, outdoing himself in this demagoguery moments after then President Ronald Wilson Reagan nominated Federal Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Robert H. Bork to succeed the retiring Associate Justice Lewis Powell in 1987:

Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens. (Kennedy And Bork.)

 

I can't recall any conciliar official criticizing Edward Moore Kennedy for this demagogic remark. Kennedy got a free pass from conciliar officials most of the time. He even served as an "extraordinary minister" when administering what purports to be the Most Precious Blood in the Novus Ordo service the day after his nephew, the late John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr., died on Friday, July 16, 1999. That's how much "respect" conciliar officials have for what they assert, albeit falsely, is the Most Precious Blood of Our Divine Redeemer. A man who supports and promotes the very evils that caused Our Lord to be put to death on the wood of the Holy Cross in atonement for our sins (a truth rejected by "Archbishop" Robert Zollitsch, the chairman of the conciliar "episcopal" conference in Germany, who has yet to be publicly rebuked or corrected by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI in the past one hundred thirty-eight days since Zollitsch uttered this blasphemous heresy on Holy Saturday, April 11, 2009, of all days), the greatest crime in the human history by the way, "Cardinal" O'Malley, is considered fit enough to handle a chalice containing what is believed to be the Divine Redeemer's Most Precious Blood.

Conciliar officials said nothing as Edward Moore Kennedy used his own prestige and his family number and his family's money to support pro-abortion candidates for public office across the nation. Kennedy endorsed Walter Mondale and his own home state's Michael Dukakis, who had introduced the bill in the Massachusetts State Senate, which went unopposed by Kennedy family's bought and paid for "house priest," Richard Cardinal Cushing (see Cushing's Children), to legalize the sale of contraceptives to married couples, and William Jefferson Blythe Clinton and Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., and his own fellow Catholic apostate, John F. Kerry, and, of course, very famously, then United States Senator Barack Hussein Obama, pro-aborts each and every one of them.

Did Senator Kennedy use the time that God gave him to prepare for his death to renounce publicly the evils that he supported so boldly, so defiantly? No. Edward Moore Kennedy used his time to support the likes of Barack Hussein Obama. His last public letter, dated July 2, 2009, was to the Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, to have the Massachusetts state legislature change the law so that his successor could be selected by the governor without waiting for a special election despite the fact that the current law, which specifies such an election, was put in place in 2004 partly at Kennedy's behest to prevent then Governor Mitt Romney from naming a successor to United States Senator John F. Kerry in the event that that hapless Catholic pro-abort defeated the hapless statist named George Walker Bush for the presidency that year. That's what was on Kennedy's mind as he neared his death: making sure that another pro-abort like himself was selected to take his place in the United States Senate. Not thought, at least not expressed publicly, of regret concerning his championing of one moral evil after another.

Edward Moore Kennedy used the might of his accuмulated seniority, second only to the thirty-third degree Mason Robert Byrd, who had ousted him as the Senate Majority Whip in the aftermath of Kennedy's Chappaquiddick debacle that resulted in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne on July 18, 1969, to push and push and push for the promotion of abortion and "rights" for those steeped in unrepentant acts of moral perversity. And he remained in "good standing" in the conciliar structures until the very end despite all of this, something that would not have been the case if he had expressed the views about the crimes of the Third Reich that were expressed by Bishop Richard Williamson of the Society of Saint Pius X. That is the only truly unforgivable crime in the mind of conciliar officials that causes one to be disciplined and publicly humiliated.

Perhaps it is the case that the late Senator Edward Moore Kennedy has left behind a note to be read at his "Mass of Christian Burial" to abjure his support for baby-killing and to urge Caesar Obamus to reverse course himself, pleading also with his children and grandchildren to become defenders of the inviolability of all innocent life from the first moment of conception through all subsequent stages until natural death. Or perhaps he left instructions for the following note, written in 1971, to be read by way of making reparation for the evil that he did in public life by supporting with righteous indignation the slaughter of the innocent preborn and the debased behavior of those steeped in the sins for which the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by God Himself:

"While the deep concern of a woman bearing an unwanted child merits consideration and sympathy, it is my personal feeling that the legalization of abortion on demand is not in accordance with the value which our civilization places on human life. Wanted or unwanted, I believe that human life, even at its earliest stages, has certain rights which must be recognized – the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grow old.

"On the question of the individual's freedom of choice there are easily available birth-control methods and information which women may employ to prevent or postpone pregnancy. But once life has begun, no matter at what stage of growth, it is my belief that termination should not be decided merely by desire. ...

"When history looks back to this era it should recognize this generation as one which cared about human beings enough to halt the practice of war, to provide a decent living for every family, and to fulfill its responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception." (Letter of Senator Edward Moore Kennedy to Mr. Tom Dennelly of Great Neck, New York, August 3, 1971, A Tale of Two Teddies: Pro-choice Kennedy was pro-life in 1971.)

Barring the existence of such a letter to be read at his funeral, which will be a typical Novus Ordo celebration replete with eulogies and applause, the authority of the Catholic Church, having excommunicated Ted Kennedy solemnly long ago, would have barred any public ceremonies held in any Catholic facility for him after his death. Kennedy could have used the last fifteen months to make public amends for his public crimes against God and man by his support of one moral evil after another, to say nothing of his support for the injustices of statism that have turned the United States of America into a Third World debtor nation financially, mirroring its status as debtor nation to God for all of the crimes against Him that have been sanctioned under civil law domestically and exported internationally by means of American foreign aid programs and by means of the corrupting influence of American popular culture.

Yes, of course, we pray for the soul of the deceased. Only God knows exactly what happens to a soul at the moment of his Particular Judgment. As noted before, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ died to redeem Edward Moore Kennedy. We will only know on the Last Day, at the General Judgment of the Living and the Dead, whether Senator Kennedy made a perfect Act of Contrition during the final hours of his life and expressed true sorrow for his support of the evils he advanced in his public life. I prayed frequently for Edward Moore Kennedy in life. I will pray for his immortal soul every day, knowing that Our Lady will direct the fruit of those prayers to some other soul if the late senior United States Senator from Massachusetts remained unrepentant for his crimes against God and man until he drew his final breath.

We do know this, however: Senator Kennedy would have been required by a true Catholic priest to have repented publicly of his crimes against God and man as part of the penance he received when making his Last Confession. The late Senator Kennedy's public crimes involving the promotion and protection of baby-killing, the promotion of Federal funds for fetal tissue research, the harassment of pro-life Catholics praying their Rosaries outside of American killing centers by virtue of the so-called "Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act," his support in public life for his fellow pro-aborts, and his unreconstructed support of "rights" for those who base their human identities on sins opposed to nature caused grave scandal and caused great harm to the nation he sought to serve. A true Catholic priest would have required him to repent publicly of this harm. That this was not done by the lords of the counterfeit church of conciliarism speaks volumes about their being bereft of anything remotely approaching the sensus Catholicus.

Edward Moore Kennedy was just another in the long line of victims of Americanism, convinced that he could do and say and believe whatever he wanted even if he defied the authority of the Catholic Church. He was reaffirmed in his beliefs by a steady cadre of "bishops" and "priests" and presbyters in the conciliar structures. At the core of the "common ground" between Edward Moore Kennedy and these conciliar officials, you see, is a fundamental rejection of the authentic Social Teaching of the Catholic Church, exemplified so clearly by Pope Leo XIII in Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890:

Under such evil circuмstances therefore, each one is bound in conscience to watch over himself, taking all means possible to preserve the faith inviolate in the depths of his soul, avoiding all risks, and arming himself on all occasions, especially against the various specious sophisms rife among non-believers. In order to safeguard this virtue of faith in its integrity, We declare it to be very profitable and consistent with the requirements of the time, that each one, according to the measure of his capacity and intelligence, should make a deep study of Christian doctrine, and imbue his mind with as perfect a knowledge as may be of those matters that are interwoven with religion and lie within the range of reason. And as it is necessary that faith should not only abide untarnished in the soul, but should grow with ever painstaking increase, the suppliant and humble entreaty of the apostles ought constantly to be addressed to God: "Increase our faith.''

But in this same matter, touching Christian faith, there are other duties whose exact and religious observance, necessary at all times in the interests of eternal salvation, become more especially so in these our days. Amid such reckless and widespread folly of opinion, it is, as We have said, the office of the Church to undertake the defense of truth and uproot errors from the mind, and this charge has to be at all times sacredly observed by her, seeing that the honor of God and the salvation of men are confided to her keeping. But, when necessity compels, not those only who are invested with power of rule are bound to safeguard the integrity of faith, but, as St. Thomas maintains: "Each one is under obligation to show forth his faith, either to instruct and encourage others of the faithful, or to repel the attacks of unbelievers.'' To recoil before an enemy, or to keep silence when from all sides such clamors are raised against truth, is the part of a man either devoid of character or who entertains doubt as to the truth of what he professes to believe. In both cases such mode of behaving is base and is insulting to God, and both are incompatible with the salvation of mankind. This kind of conduct is profitable only to the enemies of the faith, for nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good. Moreover, want of vigor on the part of Christians is so much the more blameworthy, as not seldom little would be needed on their part to bring to naught false charges and refute erroneous opinions, and by always exerting themselves more strenuously they might reckon upon being successful. After all, no one can be prevented from putting forth that strength of soul which is the characteristic of true Christians, and very frequently by such display of courage our enemies lose heart and their designs are thwarted. Christians are, moreover, born for combat, whereof the greater the vehemence, the more assured, God aiding, the triumph: "Have confidence; I have overcome the world." Nor is there any ground for alleging that Jesus Christ, the Guardian and Champion of the Church, needs not in any manner the help of men. Power certainly is not wanting to Him, but in His loving kindness He would assign to us a share in obtaining and applying the fruits of salvation procured through His grace.

The chief elements of this duty consist in professing openly and unflinchingly the Catholic doctrine, and in propagating it to the utmost of our power. For, as is often said, with the greatest truth, there is nothing so hurtful to Christian wisdom as that it should not be known, since it possesses, when loyally received, inherent power to drive away error.

 

Edward Moore Kennedy lived his life in defiance of these truths. He professed--and was loyal to--the "faith" of naturalism and sentimentality as he spat in the face of His Divine Redeemer by promoting one sin after another under the cover of civil law in the name of "human rights" and "compassion" and "dignity." His is a life to be pitied, not celebrated, not emulated, not eulogized. While, as noted before, we pray for God's ineffable Mercy upon his immortal soul, we also remember that God is just. It is a tragedy that Edward Moore Kennedy, a true son of Americanism, never understood these simple words of the great saint whose feast is celebrated in our liturgy tomorrow, Friday, August 28, 2009, Saint Augustine of Hippo:

"But the death of the soul is worse than the freedom of error." (quoted by Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832.)

 

May we learn this lesson in our lives. May we understand and accept that Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order. Nothing else. No compromises. Not one. Not ever.

What I wrote in Time to Prepare fifteen months ago is worth repeating once again:

So what if Edward Moore Kennedy rejects the graces that Our Lady will send him as he nears death? So what? Our prayers will not be in vain. No prayer is ever wasted. Ever. Our Lady will use the merit of whatever prayers are offered to her by those of us who are consecrated to her Divine Son through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart for the greater honor and glory of the Most Blessed Trinity and for the good of some other soul (or some other souls) if the person for whom we are praying at any given moment chooses to die in a state of final impenitence. No prayer is ever wasted. None. At any time.

The same holds true as we pray for the repose of Senator Kennedy's soul now that he has died. His life and death, however, serve as signal warning to us to be serious about our fidelity to the truths of the Catholic Faith at all times as we seek to discharge the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy, not one of which involves supporting the slicing and dicing of innocent human babies under cover of the civil law. For it is one thing to sin and to be sorry as we seek out the Mercy of the Divine Redeemer in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance. Behold! A terrible sinner writes these articles. Alas, it is quite another to sin unrepentantly, worse yet to seek to promote sin under cover of the civil law and in every aspect of popular culture.

We must be serious about making reparation for our own many sins, cleaving to true bishops and true bishops in the Catholic catacombs who make no concessions to conciliarism or to the nonexistent legitimacy of its officials who support one condemned dogmatic proposition after another as they indemnify the likes of Edward Moore Kennedy to the point of their deaths.

Let us use the time God has given us right now to pray a Rosary in reparation for our sins and for those of the likes of Senator Kennedy, begging Our Lady to help us to be ready at all times for our own deaths as we protect ourselves with the shield of her Brown Scapular and use the weapon of her Most Holy Rosary to ward off all of the influences of the world, the flesh, and the devil in our daily lives.

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, Patron of Departing Souls, pray for us.

 
Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Joseph Calasanctius, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints

 

 



 


 

 


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© Copyright 2009, Thomas A. Droleskey. All rights reserved.