Returning to the unpleasant task of having to read, no less dissect, Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro's address at the so-called National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, February 5, 2015, the Feast of Saint Agatha, it should be noted at the outset of this follow up to yesterday's article, Bucking for Jorge's Job, part one, that the very fact that there is such a thing as a "national prayer breakfast" is itself a telling commentary on the religious indifferentism that has passed for "religious faith" here in the United States of America from its very foundation.
Writing in Longiqua Oceani, January 6, 1895, Pope Leo XIII, after praising the natural virtues of George Washington and the fact that the Holy Faith was not opposed by the Constitution or the institutions established thereby, explained that the growth of the Faith in the United States of America was the result of the fecundity of the working of God the Holy Ghost, not the legal guarantees whereby Catholics could practice their religion without state interference. Pope Leo XIII noted that greater yet would have been the fruit if the Constitution of the United States recognized the true Faith and accorded it the favor and protection of the public law:
The main factor, no doubt, in bringing things into this happy state were the ordinances and decrees of your synods, especially of those which in more recent times were convened and confirmed by the authority of the Apostolic See. But, moreover (a fact which it gives pleasure to acknowledge), thanks are due to the equity of the laws which obtain in America and to the customs of the well-ordered Republic. For the Church amongst you, unopposed by the Constitution and government of your nation, fettered by no hostile legislation, protected against violence by the common laws and the impartiality of the tribunals, is free to live and act without hindrance. Yet, though all this is true, it would be very erroneous to draw the conclusion that in America is to be sought the type of the most desirable status of the Church, or that it would be universally lawful or expedient for State and Church to be, as in America, dissevered and divorced. The fact that Catholicity with you is in good condition, nay, is even enjoying a prosperous growth, is by all means to be attributed to the fecundity with which God has endowed His Church, in virtue of which unless men or circumstances interfere, she spontaneously expands and propagates herself; but she would bring forth more abundant fruits if, in addition to liberty, she enjoyed the favor of the laws and the patronage of the public authority. (Pope Leo XIII, Longiqua Oceani, January 6, 1895.)
As has been examined this site endlessly, the conciliar revolutionaries, following the example of the American bishops of yore, most of whom ignored the Catholic truth of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical letters, continue to draw what His Holiness called the erroneous “conclusion that in America is to be sought the type of the most desirable status of the Church, or that it would be universally lawful or expedient for State and Church to be, as in America, dissevered and divorced.”
None other than that great “restorer of tradition,” Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, explained on December 22, 2005, that the American model of “religious liberty” and “separation of Church and State” is indeed the model for the counterfeit church of concilarism, something that had to be “learned” over the course of time:
In the meantime, however, the modern age had also experienced developments. People came to realize that the American Revolution was offering a model of a modern State that differed from the theoretical model with radical tendencies that had emerged during the second phase of the French Revolution. (Christmas greetings to the Members of the Roman Curia and Prelature, December 22, 2005.)
Although the "model of a modern State" that emerged from the American Revolution did indeed differ from the "theoretical model with radical tendencies that had emerged during the second phase of the French Revolution," that difference was only a matter of degree, not of kind. The anti-Theism of the French Revolution even in its first phase from 1789 to 1792 was direct, open and violent, although not as bloodthirsty as the second phase's Reign of Terror under Maximilian Robespierre and The Directory. The American Revolution's anti-Theism was more subtle in that it paved the way for our current circumstances by bestowing irreligion with protected "constitutional rights," thus making it impossible to stop such things as the open worship of the devil (as opposed to the more subtle forms of devil worship found in other false religions) in the chapels of the armed forces of the United States of America and elsewhere.
Pope Leo XIII noted in Libertas Praestantissimum, June 20, 1888, that Holy Mother Church will accommodate herself to the concrete realities in which her children find themselves in the modern civil state in order to continue her work of sanctification and instruction. Holy Mother Church, however, never concedes as a matter of principle the false premises of the modern civil state as she seeks to exhort her children to know their obligations to pray and to work for the conversion of their nations to the true Faith, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order:
But, to judge aright, we must acknowledge that, the more a State is driven to tolerate evil, the further is it from perfection; and that the tolerance of evil which is dictated by political prudence should be strictly confined to the limits which its justifying cause, the public welfare, requires. Wherefore, if such tolerance would be injurious to the public welfare, and entail greater evils on the State, it would not be lawful; for in such case the motive of good is wanting. And although in the extraordinary condition of these times the Church usually acquiesces in certain modern liberties, not because she prefers them in themselves, but because she judges it expedient to permit them, she would in happier times exercise her own liberty; and, by persuasion, exhortation, and entreaty would endeavor, as she is bound, to fulfill the duty assigned to her by God of providing for the eternal salvation of mankind. One thing, however, remains always true -- that the liberty which is claimed for all to do all things is not, as We have often said, of itself desirable, inasmuch as it is contrary to reason that error and truth should have equal rights.
And as to tolerance, it is surprising how far removed from the equity and prudence of the Church are those who profess what is called liberalism. For, in allowing that boundless license of which We have spoken, they exceed all limits, and end at last by making no apparent distinction between truth and error, honesty and dishonesty. And because the Church, the pillar and ground of truth, and the unerring teacher of morals, is forced utterly to reprobate and condemn tolerance of such an abandoned and criminal character, they calumniate her as being wanting in patience and gentleness, and thus fail to see that, in so doing, they impute to her as a fault what is in reality a matter for commendation. But, in spite of all this show of tolerance, it very often happens that, while they profess themselves ready to lavish liberty on all in the greatest profusion, they are utterly intolerant toward the Catholic Church, by refusing to allow her the liberty of being herself free. (Pope Leo XIII, Libertas Praestantissimum, June 20, 1888.)
This is not a matter of ethereal speculation having nothing to with the real lives of human beings. Not at all. The heresy of religious liberty, which is at the heart of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, devastates souls. The belief that those who belong to false religions have a "civil right" to propagate themselves and that their false beliefs can contribute to the betterment of society make it impossible to exclude those false religions from making their presence felt everywhere in society, especially in "educational" institutions, where the tender souls of the young become ready prey to false ideas that are propagandized by charismatic professors. This is true in the United States of America and elsewhere in the allegedly "free" world of "democratic republics.
Unlike the Catholic Church, which makes concessions to the realities of the concrete cirumstances in which her children live without endorsing the errors of the moment, the counterfeit church of conciliarism concedes the licitness of the false principles, which its lords consider to be "good" in and of themselves. This is one of the reasons that chemical and surgical baby-killing under cover of law continues unabated. One cannot fight moral evils with false principles.
The counterfeit church of conciliarism rejects the truth that Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order, its "conservative" 'bishops" in the United States of America content to ally themselves with phony "pro-life" politicians in the organized agency of naturalism known as the Republican Party, most of whom support surgical baby-killing in some instances and the assassination of the innocent preborn by chemical means in all instances, thus falling into the same naturalist trap as their predecessors in the Catholic Church who served as lackeys for the likes of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
The logic of the falsehoods of Modernity and Modernity are such, though, that the so-called "ultra-progressive" conciliar "bishops" of the United States of America have believed that it is their "moral duty" to "help the poor" and illegal immigrants by means of statist policies, thus serving as the enablers of the current statist, Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro, who has indeed received their active support, especially at a time when it is impossible to distinguish between the speeches and policies of the reigning caesar and the agenda of his enabling cheerleader at the Casa Santa Marta, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis. They are joined at the hip in support of every error of Modernity imaginable.
Thus it is that Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro's praise of "separation of Church and State" and of "religious liberty" two days ago places him in perfect and total agreement with the likes of the retired Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis. Obama/Soetoro sounds exactly like them as the errors of Modernity and of Modernism are one and the same:
Our job is not to ask that God respond to our notion of truth -- our job is to be true to Him, His word, and His commandments. And we should assume humbly that we’re confused and don’t always know what we’re doing and we’re staggering and stumbling towards Him, and have some humility in that process. And that means we have to speak up against those who would misuse His name to justify oppression, or violence, or hatred with that fierce certainty. No God condones terror. No grievance justifies the taking of innocent lives, or the oppression of those who are weaker or fewer in number.
And so, as people of faith, we are summoned to push back against those who try to distort our religion -- any religion -- for their own nihilistic ends. And here at home and around the world, we will constantly reaffirm that fundamental freedom -- freedom of religion -- the right to practice our faith how we choose, to change our faith if we choose, to practice no faith at all if we choose, and to do so free of persecution and fear and discrimination.
There’s wisdom in our founders writing in those documents that help found this nation the notion of freedom of religion, because they understood the need for humility. They also understood the need to uphold freedom of speech, that there was a connection between freedom of speech and freedom of religion. For to infringe on one right under the pretext of protecting another is a betrayal of both.
But part of humility is also recognizing in modern, complicated, diverse societies, the functioning of these rights, the concern for the protection of these rights calls for each of us to exercise civility and restraint and judgment. And if, in fact, we defend the legal right of a person to insult another’s religion, we’re equally obligated to use our free speech to condemn such insults -- (applause) -- and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with religious communities, particularly religious minorities who are the targets of such attacks. Just because you have the right to say something doesn’t mean the rest of us shouldn’t question those who would insult others in the name of free speech. Because we know that our nations are stronger when people of all faiths feel that they are welcome, that they, too, are full and equal members of our countries.
So humility I think is needed. And the second thing we need is to uphold the distinction between our faith and our governments. Between church and between state. The United States is one of the most religious countries in the world -- far more religious than most Western developed countries. And one of the reasons is that our founders wisely embraced the separation of church and state. Our government does not sponsor a religion, nor does it pressure anyone to practice a particular faith, or any faith at all. And the result is a culture where people of all backgrounds and beliefs can freely and proudly worship, without fear, or coercion -- so that when you listen to Darrell talk about his faith journey you know it's real. You know he’s not saying it because it helps him advance, or because somebody told him to. It's from the heart.
That’s not the case in theocracies that restrict people’s choice of faith. It's not the case in authoritarian governments that elevate an individual leader or a political party above the people, or in some cases, above the concept of God Himself. So the freedom of religion is a value we will continue to protect here at home and stand up for around the world, and is one that we guard vigilantly here in the United States. (Remarks by the Caesar at National Prayer Breakfast.)
Sure looks like Caesar Obama is trying to take the "humility" card away from Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
Obama/Soetoro has certainly gotten all of the "talking points" down pat, hasn't he?
Humility, separation of Church and State, religious freedom, stumbling to know God's truth, etc.
Yup, all of the major conciliar talking points are right there, and this is not even to mention how this blasphemous statist has used the raw power of his office to promote, protect and fund, if not mandate in some instances, the chemical and surgical execution of the innocent preborn.
"Religious liberty?"
What about for the formerly Catholic hospitals in conciliar captivity that have been mandated to provide health insurance coverage for "family planning services"?
Well, Caesar Obama has the "answer" to all of this: "Our job is not to ask that God respond to our notion of truth -- our job is to be true to Him, His word, and His commandments."
Isn't it peculiar that Barack Hussein Obama/Bary Soetoro believes that one has to be "true to God, His word, and His commandments" when he believes in nothing contained in the Sacred Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ entrusted exclusively to His Catholic Church for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication and contradicts their true meaning day in and out without cease?
In this regard, of course, President Barack Hussein Obama is one with his pal at the Casa Santa Marta, Jorge Mario Bergoglio whohas said on many occasions that the "no church" of the "past" was "too closed-in-on-itself" and "self-referential," absolutely sure of possessing all truth.
Here is but one example to document this statement for those who have short memories and/or whose memories have been blurred by the constant stream of words out of the mouth of this Argentine apostate:
“A Christian,” said Pope Francis, “must proclaim Jesus Christ in such a way that He be accepted: received, not refused – and Paul knows that he has to sow the Gospel message. He knows that the proclamation of Jesus Christ is not easy, but that it does not depend on him. He must do everything possible, but the proclamation of Jesus Christ, the proclamation of the truth, depends on the Holy Spirit. Jesus tells us in today's Gospel: ‘When He shall come, the Spirit of truth, shall guide you into all the truth.’ Paul does not say to the Athenians: ‘This is the encyclopedia of truth. Study this and you have the truth, the truth.’ No! The truth does not enter into an encyclopedia. The truth is an encounter - it is a meeting with Supreme Truth: Jesus, the great truth. No one owns the truth. The we receive the truth when we meet [it]. (Miss Frances at Wednesday Mass: build bridges, not walls.)
No one owns the truth.
On other words, even what Jorge Mario Bergoglio thinks is the Catholic Church always has to "encounter" truth alongside other "believers." In this, of course, Jorge is one with Barack. To quite the late Bert Lahr's Cowardly Lion from that blasphemous motion picture I watched too many times in my life before coming to realize it as an attack upon Catholicism, "Ain't it the truth. Ain't it the truth." These two figures of Antichrist are as one with each other on almost every matter of substance imaginable.
As noted in part one, these two figures of Antichrist also share an ignorance about the facts of history, predisposing each to believe every Protestant and Judeo-Masonic shibboleth about the glories of Christendom, including the Crusades, which they seek to caricature whenever given the opportunity, principally to exculpate Mohammedans who blow up Christian shrines and execute "infidels" in perfect fidelity to the tenets of their false "prophet," Mohammed.
It should come as no surprise that two of the world's most recognizable figures are men who are products of Modernity's shibboleths. Each was fed a steady diet of myths during what passed for their "education," and each has become renowned for their propagating these myths with religious fervor, including those that Obama/Soetoro uttered two days ago about "The Inquistion":
Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history. And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. Michelle and I returned from India -- an incredible, beautiful country, full of magnificent diversity -- but a place where, in past years, religious faiths of all types have, on occasion, been targeted by other peoples of faith, simply due to their heritage and their beliefs -- acts of intolerance that would have shocked Gandhiji, the person who helped to liberate that nation.
So this is not unique to one group or one religion. There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith. In today’s world, when hate groups have their own Twitter accounts and bigotry can fester in hidden places in cyberspace, it can be even harder to counteract such intolerance. But God compels us to try. And in this mission, I believe there are a few principles that can guide us, particularly those of us who profess to believe.
And, first, we should start with some basic humility. I believe that the starting point of faith is some doubt -- not being so full of yourself and so confident that you are right and that God speaks only to us, and doesn’t speak to others, that God only cares about us and doesn’t care about others, that somehow we alone are in possession of the truth. (Remarks by the Caesar at National Prayer Breakfast.)
Yes, this is certainly almost identical with the bilge that Jorge Mario Bergoglio has fed to us in the past six hundred ninety-six days. Although many "conservative" Catholics are upset with Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro for his attempting to make a moral equivalence between the faith-based violence of believing Mohammedans with the Crusades and "The Inquistion," it must be pointed out that Jorge Mario Bergoglio himself was all smiles on December 2, 2013, when the Zionist named Benjamin Netanyahu presented him with a book of mythology about the Spanish Inquistion that had been written by the Israel Prime Minister's late father, Ben Zion Netanyahu:
Today, Benjamin Netanyahu had an audience with Pope Francis in Rome, where he invited the supreme pontiff to Israel and presented him with a variety of gifts. One of them, as you can see in the photo above, was a Spanish translation of a history of the Spanish Inquisition, written by Bibi’s late father, Ben Zion Netanyahu. At first glance, The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain looks like a rather awkward selection. After all, when visiting with the pope, it’s probably best not to remind him of his institution’s role in the infamous persecution and torture of innocent Jews. Certain things would seem better left unsaid on state visits.
But this isn’t your typical history of the Spanish Inquisition. In fact, Ben Zion Netanyahu’s revisionist account of the event was so controversial that when he passed away in April 2012, the New York Times chronicled the debate over it in his obituary. Understanding the book’s unique argument enables us to understand why Netanyahu chose to give such an ostensibly undiplomatic gift to the Pope. The Times recounts:
As a historian, Mr. Netanyahu reinterpreted the Inquisition in “The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain” (1995). The predominant view had been that Jews were persecuted for secretly practicing their religion after pretending to convert to Roman Catholicism. Mr. Netanyahu, in 1,384 pages, offered evidence that most Jews in Spain had willingly become Catholics and were enthusiastic about their new religion.
Jews were persecuted, he concluded — many of them burned at the stake — for being perceived as an evil race rather than for anything they believed or had done. Jealousy over Jews’ success in the economy and at the royal court only fueled the oppression, he wrote. The book traced what he called “Jew hatred” to ancient Egypt, long before Christianity.
In other words, Ben Zion Netanyahu’s argument shifted the root blame for the Inquisition from religion to ingrained racial animus–from the spiritual to the secular. If one was going to give the pope a book about the Inquisition, then, this would be the one. Moreover, not only does the book’s revisionist reckoning partially absolve Christianity for Spanish persecution of the Jews, it offers a contemporary message of pressing relevance. At a time when Christian anti-Semitism has receded–evidenced not least by the friendly relations between the Vatican and the state of Israel–secular and racial forms of anti-Semitism have been on the rise, particularly in Europe, where a nearly a quarter of Jews say they are afraid to publicly identify as Jewish. The anti-Semitism diagnosed by Ben Zion Netanyahu is alive and well.
The elder Netanyahu’s account of the Inquisition then, whatever its merits as a reconstruction of the past, serves as a powerful warning about the dangers lurking in the present–one that his son doubtless intended to convey. (Why Netanyahu Gave Jorge His
Father's History of the Spanish Inquistion
.)
It is no wonder that Jorge was all smiles when receiving the copy of Ben Zion Netanyahu’s book on the Spanish Inquisition from the bloodstained hands of his son Benjamin, who is not exactly volunteering any Israeli assistance to defend Christian shrines in the Middle East (probably on the pretext that to do so would be unite the Mohammedan world against Israel although the Israeli Defense Forces have shelled and defaced Christian shrines within that country’s boundaries).
Remember, Jorge Mario Bergoglio is the man who has “prayed” from the blasphemous Talmud, reaffirmed the “enduring validity” of the Mosaic Covenant, paid a gesture of “respect” at the tomb of Zionism’s founder, Theodore Herzl, to “atone” for Pope Saint Pius X’s opposition to the resettlement of Jews in Palestine and, among other apostate actions, hidden his pectoral cross beneath his fascia when meeting with the two chief rabbis of Jerusalem last year. He laps everything to do with Judaism. The “conservative” Catholics who are outraged at Obama for his remarks on the Crusades and “The Inquistion” simply do not want to realize that their “pope” believes and professes the same sort of blasphemies as the American president.
Moreover, “conservative” Catholics have to reckon with the fact that “Saint John Paul II” did not beat around the bush on June 15, 2004, as he had with his March 12, 2000, letter of “apology” to the “world. It was just nine and one-half months before his death that he authorized a letter to be issued that apologized for “the Inquisition” even though a commission whose members included the then theologian to the “papal” household, Georges “Cardinal” Cottier, O.P., had refuted the myths about it as being inventions of Protestants and the French Revolutionaries:
Here is what was issued in Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II’s name on June 15, 2004:
1. I receive with deep appreciation the volume containing the Proceedings of the International Symposium on the Inquisition, organized at the Vatican from 29-31 October 1998 by the Historical-Theological Commission for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000.
This Symposium answered the desire I expressed in the Apostolic Letter Tertio Millennium Adveniente: "...it is appropriate that... the Church should become more fully conscious of the sinfulness of her children, recalling all those times in history when they departed from the spirit of Christ and his Gospel and, instead of offering to the world the witness of a life inspired by the values of faith, indulged in ways of thinking and acting which were truly forms of counter-witness and scandal" (n. 33).
In public opinion, the image of the Inquisition is as it were the symbol of such counter-witness and scandal. How faithful to reality is this image? Before asking for forgiveness it is necessary to have exact knowledge of the facts and to put shortcomings with regard to what the Gospel requires in the context where they are effectively found. This is the reason why the Committee has consulted historians whose scientific competence is universally recognized.
2. For theologians, the irreplaceable contribution of historians contains an invitation to reflect on the conditions and life of the People of God on its way through history.
The theologians will be guided by a distinction in their critical reflection: the distinction between the authentic sensus fidei and the predominant mentality in a specific epoch that might have influenced their opinion.
The sensus fidei must be asked to exercise the criteria of a level judgment of the life of the Church in the past.
3. This discernment is possible precisely because with the passage of time the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, perceives with ever clearer awareness what she needs in order to conform to her Bridegroom. Thus, the Second Vatican Council was able to formulate the "golden rule" that directs the defence of the truth, which is the task proper to the mission of the Magisterium. "Truth can impose itself on the mind of man only in virtue of its own truth..., which wins over the mind with both gentleness and power" (Dignitatis Humanae, n. 1. This assertion is quoted in Tertio Millennium Adveniente, cf. n. 35).
The institution of the Inquisition has been abolished. As I had an opportunity to say to the participants in the Symposium, the children of the Church cannot but return with a spirit of repentance to "the acquiescence given, especially in certain centuries, to intolerance and even the use of violence in the service of the truth" (Address to the International Symposium on the Inquisition Organized by the Central Committee for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, 31 October 1998, n. 4; L'Osservatore Romano English edition, [ORE], 11 November 1998, p. 3).
This spirit of repentance, it is clear, entails a firm determination to seek in the future ways to bear witness to the truth that are in keeping with the Gospel.
4. On 12 March 2000, on the occasion of the liturgical celebration that marked the Day of Pardon, forgiveness was asked for errors committed in the service of the truth by recourse to methods not in keeping with the Gospel. The Church must carry out this service in imitation of her Lord, meek and humble of heart. The prayer I addressed to God on that occasion contains the reasons for a request for forgiveness that can also be applied to the tragedies associated with the Inquisition, as well as to the injuries to memory that result from it. (Presentation to John Paul II of volume "L'Inquisizione".)
Historian Dr. Marian Therese Horvat was aghast when the conciliar “pope” du jour issued this letter in spite of the evidence that the “pope’s” own commission had amassed to disprove the lies about “The Inquisition,” including pointing out that there were different inquisitions, not just one, and that each had followed careful procedures to assure that fulfillment of the precepts of the due process of law:
Let me note that this particular apology of John Paul II coincided with the release of the Symposium Report, a large 783-page volume assessing the Inquisition based on up-to-now inaccessible documents from the Vatican archives. The findings of the team of researchers far from justify a papal apology. The opposite is true. They affirm the conclusions of recent academic studies that show the torture chambers, witch-burning, and vindictive power-crazed churchmen were nonexistent, part of the “black legend” invented by the Protestants, emphasized by partisans of the French Revolution, and broadly spread throughout Europe and the United States up to our times [see my tape The Myth of the Holy Inquisition].
It isn’t really possible to either speak about or ask forgiveness in general for the Inquisition, Cardinal George Cottier, a member of the Symposium, pointed out. The Inquisition per se did not exist, he noted, so how can you ask forgiveness for an image spread by public opinion, which is part of a myth and does not correspond to reality? (Zenit, June 15, 2004)
What did exist were various particular Inquisitions launched by Popes to deal calmly and fairly with specific problems at different times and places. Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241) established the institution and St. Dominic's order, founded to defend and maintain the orthodoxy of the Faith, were asked to run the courts of the Inquisition. The inquisitors, delegates of the Apostolic See, were charged with the task of combating the Albigensian heresy in southern France in the 13th century.
The most famous and much maligned Spanish Inquisition was established in 1478 by Pope Sixtus IV in response to numerous complaints Rome was receiving from southern Spain about the many heresies and immoralities introduced into Catholic doctrine by false believers and converts. I refer you to a booklet written by three priests of Miles Iesu [Soldier of Christ society] entitled Why Apologize for the Spanish Inquisition? The priests present findings of modern scholars on the topic and correctly conclude that the world is indebted to the Catholic Church for establishing the tribunal of the Spanish Inquisition, because “its legality, fairness and clemency due to Catholic thinking based on the consistent moral teaching of the Catholic Church saved millions of souls from confusion, contradiction, hatred, poverty and death” (Chicago: Miles Iesu, 2000, p. 27).
At the June 15 press conference in Rome, Agostino Borromeo, symposium spokesman, pointed out how the Spanish Inquisition held far fewer trials than had been supposed and employed a direct and open policy throughout the trial procedure. The accused condemned to death comprised only 1.8%, and this includes the 1.7% condemned in “contumacy,” that is, burned or hanged in effigy since their whereabouts were unknown. Which means that only .1% of those tried by the Spanish Inquisition were actually burned or hanged (Zenit, June 5, 2004).
About the notorious “witch hunts,” Borromeo again confirmed what scholars have been demonstrating for the last couple of decades. Most of the witch burnings of modern Europe (and there was almost none in the medieval period) occurred under Protestant tribunals, not under the Inquisition in Catholic countries. Quite the opposite, it was the Catholic Inquisition in Spain that often intervened to defend the women accused of being witches, just as it protected Jews from mob lynching frenzies. Here are some of the symposium’s figures: witches burned in Switzerland under Protestant tribunals: 4,000; in Spain under the Catholic Inquisition during the same period: 39 (ibid.).
The Roman Inquisition was begun in 1542 with the same noble aim of preserving the Faith and eradicating heresy. Early in its noble and glorious history, the future Pope Pius V, zealous in the fight against heresy, was selected as inquisitor in Milan and Lombardy, and in 1557 Paul II made him inquisitor general for all Christendom. A modern scholar, John Tedeschi, concluded that the Roman Inquisition did, in fact, dispense judicial justice, and was even “a pioneer in judicial reform in modern Europe.”(1) This same institution became the Vatican Holy Office and later, in 1965, Paul VI changed its name, to The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Drumhead courts, torture chambers, or judicial labyrinths with no escape impossible simply never existed; there was no such “Inquisition.” Therefore, general condemnations and consequent apologies for an abstract “Inquisition” are wrong in principle, since they do not consider the particular reality of these different institutions. To condemn “The Inquisition” would be as wrong as condemning “The University” in general, without identifying any particular one or ones. Such condemnations of this splendid institution appear to be just more fuel being poured on the revolutionary fire that is trying to extinguish the militancy of the Church. (Another papal apology for the
Inquisition
.)
Most people alive today have never heard of the truth of the various inquisitions that were convened under duly constituted authority, which is they nod their heads in full agreement when hearing what can be termed the ObamaBergoglio Monster, phenomenon quite different than the “Chesterbelloc Monster as coined by George Bernard Shaw to differ to the man who bested him in debate time and time again, Gilbert Keith Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, speak about world history. It is as though Obama and Bergoglio learned their “history” from something akin to Mel Brooks’s blasphemous and ribald The History of the World motion picture (which I have never seen). Obama and Bergoglio are caricatures from Mister Peabody’s Improbable History. Everything but the truth is true to these unfortunate creatures of Modernity and Modernism.
Writing in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885, Pope Leo XIII explained that atheism becomes the lowest common denominator when a civil state does not profess the true religion:
To hold, therefore, that there is no difference in matters of religion between forms that are unlike each other, and even contrary to each other, most clearly leads in the end to the rejection of all religion in both theory and practice. And this is the same thing as atheism, however it may differ from it in name. Men who really believe in the existence of God must, in order to be consistent with themselves and to avoid absurd conclusions, understand that differing modes of divine worship involving dissimilarity and conflict even on most important points cannot all be equally probable, equally good, and equally acceptable to God. (Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885.)
That is, no matter the impossibility of having created a Catholic state in 1776 and 1787, the fact remains that the premise of a religious neutral civil state is false in and of itself and leads inevitably to the triumph of practical atheism over the course of time. Superstition and myth must take the place of the true religion in the lives of men and their nations when the true religion instituted by Christ the King Himself is ignored and despised as belonging to the age of the Crusades, which produced such great and valorous Catholic heroes, and “The Inquisition.” Ignorance and absurdity must replace both supernatural and natural truth when men and their nations refuse to submit to the teaching authority and sanctifying offices of the Catholic Church.
Today is the First Saturday of the month of February. We must fulfill Our Lady's Fatima Message in our own lives, praying our Rosaries and meditating upon the mysteries contained therein before her Divine Son's Real Presence. Our task is to do nothing less than to plant at least a few seeds for the restoration of the Catholic City, as Pope Saint Pius X exhorted us to do in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910:
This, nevertheless, is what they want to do with human society; they dream of changing its natural and traditional foundations; they dream of a Future City built on different principles, and they dare to proclaim these more fruitful and more beneficial than the principles upon which the present Christian City rests.
No, Venerable Brethren, We must repeat with the utmost energy in these times of social and intellectual anarchy when everyone takes it upon himself to teach as a teacher and lawmaker - the City cannot be built otherwise than as God has built it; society cannot be setup unless the Church lays the foundations and supervises the work; no, civilization is not something yet to be found, nor is the New City to be built on hazy notions; it has been in existence and still is: it is Christian civilization, it is the Catholic City. It has only to be set up and restored continually against the unremitting attacks of insane dreamers, rebels and miscreants. omnia instaurare in Christo. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)
Starting with the enthronement of our homes to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, making sure to pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through that same Immaculate Heart, keeping close to our own Guardian Angels and to Saint Michael the Archangel, may we plant a few seeds for a day when the forces of darkness will be vanquished and the bright light of Our King and the loving radiance of His Most Blessed Mother will have replaced all forms of naturalism, whether of the false opposites of the naturalist "left" or of the naturalist "right," with Catholicism as the one and only foundation of personal and social order.
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?
Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
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 Romuald, pray for us.