Contra "Countersyllabus" II

+In our last issue, we juxtaposed Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s 1987 remarks about the Church in relation to the French Revolution - his justification for a “countersyllabus” - with the background and true nature of the Revolution itself.

+We also pointed out that the progressives’ Ostpolitik orientation toward the world after 1789, an orientation toward which Ratzinger helped to steer the entire Church at Vatican II, was based on weakness and a false version of Catholic charity.

+This week, we will consider how selected articles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man are further proof that “the world after 1789” is something to be lamented and conquered for Christ, not something to be reckoned with as if from a position of unenlightened inferiority, inadequacy, or deficiency.

A General Observation

+Nowhere in this document do the worda “God,” “Christ,” or “the Church” appear; only a desultory reference to “the Supreme Being” (usually a Masonic moniker) in the preamble. The sole reference to religion is in Article 10, but that reduces faith to mere “religious views.” In other words, man has become, in this Declaration, the measure of all things. How shall the Church “reconcile” Herself to that?

Article 1

“Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.”

Response

+ This is lifted directly from the fervid gibberish of Jean Jacques Rousseau. God grants each of us the same essential dignity, but we are only free if we use that dignity to move within the realm of holiness and obedience. Beyond equality of dignity, there is no such thing as equality of personhood or of personal circumstances. It might be claimed that men are equal in the eyes of secular law, but that is another fantasy reserved for nonexistent utopian states. In reality, the laws of men are always perverted, either in their codification or their application, to serve some selfish or nefarious end, resulting in inequality (for example, the Reign of Terror, which followed shortly after this document was enacted). Further, if “social distinctions” are allowed, that immediately leads to inequality of “rights.” Whether social distinctions are founded “upon the general good” is deceptive and irrelevant, since the “general good” can be defined by whoever has the power to define it, enforce their definition, and misrepresent it as “good.”

Article 3

“The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.”

Response

+Here we have the overt seeds of Communism, Nazism, and all other forms of totalitarianism: the individual exists for the purposes of the state. The human cornerstone of a Christian state, on the other hand, is the sacred and dignified nature of the individual and the family, who are granted that nature by the grace of God. Further, the principle of sovereignty does not reside in a nation, but in God, who grants his sovereignty to the nation’s leader in holy stewardship.

Article 4

“Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law.”

Response

+More Rousseau. This false definition of liberty is really the definition of license, which is one of the keys to anarchy. What is meant by “injury”? Physical? Legal? Spiritual? Note the stark contradiction between this Article, which proposes “liberty,” and Article 3, which lowers the fist of tyranny by placing the individual at the disposal of the state. Note also that injury or offense to God – i.e. sin – is omitted. If the limits of license can only be determined by law (that is, not by the teachings of the Church), then we must ask: by what standards are these laws enacted? Answer: by whatever standards best serve anarchy and tyranny.

Article 5

“Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law.”

Response

+Note the phrase “hurtful to society,” and the continued absence of the phrase “hurtful to God.” This Article completely destroys the moral teaching authority of the Church. Since many of those teachings are enacted into Western civil law, it also destroys the basis for that law (see: anarchy). And what if the foundations of society – the laws of godless men - are evil? Will not the teachings of the Church then be deemed “hurtful” to society? This is the selfsame inverted and perverted – i.e. satanic - foundation of the radical homosexual agenda: good is now evil and evil is now good. Therefore, good is a “hate crime.”

Article 7

“No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by law…”

Response

+…except for the victims, royal or otherwise, of the Reign of Terror, which in and of itself exemplified lawlessness and anarchy. In other words, it did not take very long for the Masonic thugs to ignore their own “lofty” principles.

Article 10

“No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law.”

Response

+See: Reign of Terror. In other words, everyone has freedom of speech unless the “public order established by law” has criminalized any part of it. Once again, we are left with unanswered questions: how is the law established, what does it legalize, and how is the public order defined? What constitutes a “disturbance”? What if the law and public order are inimical to the Church?

Summary

+It should be glaringly evident from this sampling that the French Revolution was based upon principles which were not only intrinsically anti-Christian, but calculated to completely destroy Christian civilization. Their poisonous intent aside, these articles are in and of themselves completely fraudulent, as they are not only rife with circular arguments and inconsistencies, but are comprised of vague generalities which permit any number of interpretations – most typically, tyrannical and anti-Catholic ones.

+Fraudulent too is the infamous battle cry of the Revolution: “Liberté, égalité, fraternité.” We have already exposed liberty and equality – what about fraternity? Isn’t the “brotherhood of man” a noble ideal? That depends on how you define it, and the applicable definition here is Masonic. +The Masonic definition of this slogan is that all men are brothers because they all seek light and spiritual truth (our readers may recognize in this the basis for post-Conciliar “ecumenism”). However, while requiring all initiates to profess belief in the existence of a Supreme Being, Masonry does not require its members to profess one particular religious creed, for it believes that all religions are equal:

"The true Mason is not creed-bound. He realizes with the Divine Illumination of his lodge that as a Mason his religion must be universal: Christ, Buddha or Mohammed, the name means little, for he recognizes only the light and not the bearer. He worships at every shrine, bows before every altar, whether in temple, mosque or cathedral, realizing with his truer understanding the oneness of all spiritual truth." - Manly Hall, "The Lost Keys of Freemasonry" That these sentiments are the polar opposite of Christianity could not be clearer.

+As Catholics we have been taught, by the greatest Popes of old, that Modernism advances by the exploitation of vague language, such as the language which appears in the documents of Vatican II. Vague language is the final nail in the Declaration’s coffin, as it employs the following terms – pleasing to the ear, but undefined - as the basis for its propositions:

FREE……EQUAL……RIGHTS……

GENERAL GOOD……SOVEREIGNTY……LIBERTY

+Finally, a full and accurate understanding of the French Revolution allows us to grasp the real import of Fr. Wiltgen’s famous “Rhine Flows into the Tiber” analogy. It points directly backward to that calamitous event by describing the attempt to graft the Masonic lies of 1789 onto our sacred and Apostolic deposit of faith. What can possibly result from this but schizophrenic madness, and ultimately, collapse from an extraordinary hubris? So we ask again: how is it that the Church must reconcile Herself to this?

Miscellanea CATHOLICA

+As the old joke goes, “If you remember the 60s, you probably weren’t there.” Here is a grim reminder of what was unfolding early in this grafting process, in 1967: the first fruits of schizophrenia.

+An appeal by the same author to Pope Paul VI.

+Some of our readers have accused us of publishing, in these French Revolution issues, a broadside against Pope Benedict. Not so. However, there are some astounding anomalies in his pre-papal writings which deserve to be challenged – or rather, challenged again – such statements having already been condemned by the great popes of the last two centuries. For example:

“Hence, these followers of liberalism deny the existence of any divine authority to which obedience is due, and proclaim that every man is the law to himself; from which arises that ethical system which they style independent morality, and which, under the guise of liberty, exonerates man from any obedience to the commands of God, and substitutes a boundless license." – Pope Leo XIII, Libertas, June 20, 1888.

+The Bishop of La Crosse, WI, the Most Rev. Jerome Listecki, warns his flock against the movie “The Golden Compass.”

+If you would like to inquire as to why USCCB movie critic Harry Forbes still has a job, you might e-mail his supervisor, Ms. Helen Osman, USCCB Secretary of Communications: hosman@usccb.org .