ELEISON  COMMENTS  DCCC  (November 12, 2022) :  79  SEMINARIANS  –  III

Over the last two weeks these “Comments” have presented the apparent good news of a record number of new seminarians for the new school-year in the four major seminaries of the “Society of St Pius X”, but the “Comments” also wondered whether that good news is as real as it is apparent. For, just as Vatican II (1962-1965) officially replaced the true Catholic Church with the Conciliar Newchurch, centred on man instead of on God, so the Society’s General Chapter of 2012 officially replaced Archbishop Lefebvre’s true Society with an essentially different Newsociety. What remains to be proved is that what happened to the Society in 2012 was such a change as to cast some doubt upon the good news of 79 new priestly vocations.

Now praise be to God for so many young men still today having enough faith, courage and good will to be wanting to be traditional priests, and praise be to the Newsociety for maintaining enough of Catholic Tradition to attract these young men. However, in seminaries of the Newsociety under the control of the Archbishop’s successors, will they be learning what they would have learned while the Archbishop was still in control ?  Surely not. And does it matter ? Surely it does. And in what does the difference consist ?

Prior to 2012, a principle laid down by the Archbishop was still the Society’s official policy towards Rome, namely, there can be no merely practical agreement between the SSPX and the Newchurch without there first being a doctrinal agreement, in other words Truth before Authority. On the contrary, because in 2012 any such doctrinal agreement seemed impossible, the General Chapter of that year laid down as principle that even without a doctrinal agreement, nevertheless a practical agreement with Rome would be possible and desirable, in other words friendliness with Authority even without Truth. Now in fairness to the Newsociety, this did not mean accepting either Vatican II (the theory of modernism) or the New Mass (its practice), so that the Newsociety cannot be accused of completely abandoning the Truth. But whereas the Archbishop had after 1988 cut all practical contact with the faithless modernists, on the contrary almost as soon as he died in 1991, his successors renewed those dangerous but supposedly harmless contacts (is there in fact anything more slippery or infectious than the heresy of modernism ?).

And whereas Archbishop Lefebvre crowned his long and illustrious career as a Catholic bishop by saving Catholic Tradition (Truth) for the entire Church, by consecrating four bishops to ensure the Society’s survival in 1988 against (Authority) the Pope’s express condemnation; and whereas Archbishop Vigano continues in his glorious footsteps by (Truth) denouncing clearly and in public the unutterable crimes of our present (Authority) Church and world leaders; on the contrary, the official Newsociety is silent or critical of Archbishop Vigano (Truth), but defers to apparent Authority, in the world concerning, for instance, the abominable Covid “vaccine”, and in the Church concerning Pope Bergoglio, because the Newsociety wants this notorious murderer of Catholic Tradition to give his official approval to its consecration of bishops for Tradition !  Did not Fr Schmidberger (SSPX Superior General from 1982 to 1994) recently tell a layman asking about bishops so needed for the SSPX that it is not consecrating any, because it is waiting for the green light from  Pope Bergoglio ?  And has the Newsociety anybody but itself to blame for having in 2012 driven the SSPX up this blind alley !  But is it aiming to produce 79 blind alley priests ?

Patience. In worldly terms, the basic problem is that Archbishop Lefebvre was an old wolf whereas his successors have been, relatively speaking, wolf cubs. He knew the old Faith and the old Church, as it is difficult for youngsters to know them, and he took the old doctrine seriously, knowing that Catholic Truth redeems the world. God is love, yes, but without Truth He cannot be the true God. “For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth, hears my voice” (Jn. XVIII, 37).       Seminarians, old or new, let us hear His voice !

                                                                                                                                         Kyrie eleison

Have patience, many lies will soon be banished.

God’s wrath will see to it, that they have vanished.

ELEISON  COMMENTS  DCCXCIX  (November 5, 2022) :  79  SEMINARIANS  –  II

In these “Comments” last week was mentioned the news of a record entry for the new school-year of 79  young men to try their vocation to the traditional Catholic priesthood in the four major seminaries of what is known as the “Society of St Pius X”.  This ought be good news for the entire Catholic Church, because every traditional priest eventually ordained will be a source of traditional sacraments for the benefit of all Catholic souls. But it may not in reality be such good news, for two reasons in particular, both of which call for prayer, only one of which was mentioned last week.

The second reason needs little explanation, but is very real – electronics. When Fr Franz Schmidberger was Superior General of the SSPX from 1982 to 1994, a layman reportedly once said to him words to the effect that electronics would destroy his priests. He was referring of course to the swamp of temptations against holy purity being made so easily available by television and the Internet, and this was even before the invention of the Smartphone, coming a few years later. Indeed, is it not becoming almost superhuman for a young man born and bred long after the invention of such machines, to keep clear of their seduction ?  Of course God and His Mother can take a young boy or girl through a maze of sewers and bring them out smelling of roses, but given God’s respect for the free-will with which He endowed each of them, may we not reasonably surmise that such cases will be the exception rather than the rule ?  And in that case, how many of the 79 young men may not run into that obstacle on their way to the priesthood?  Every single faithful Catholic priest is a great gift of God. We must pray for all 79 vocations…

As for the first reason, introduced in last week’s “Comments”, it is less obvious because it involves not physical purity but, still more serious, the spiritual purity of the faith. A reader had suggested that today’s so-called Catholic “Resistance” movement might have had more success in attracting vocations (like the 79), he argued, if it had been properly structured, as is much more normal for Catholic communities, like the four major seminaries of the “SSPX”. Last week these “Comments” began to answer that, abnormally today, an emphasis on structure is liable to distract from what is more important, namely the Catholic faith, and that one may fear that this is what is happening in the four seminaries mentioned.  Here are two separate points, the second of which will have to wait until the “Comments” of next week.

Last week it was stated that the essence of today’s crisis of the Church consists in the Vatican II split between Catholic Authority and Catholic Truth, when the highest authorities in the Church, assembled in Council, officially abandoned Church Tradition for “church” modernisation. This meant that from then on Catholics had to choose : either cling to Authority by “obeying” the modernists and abandoning Tradition, or cling to Truth and defy more or less the apparent Church “authorities”. Or they can choose any one of several possible combinations of part Truth and part Authority anywhere between the two poles.

As for Archbishop Lefebvre, his choice was as much respect as possible for Authority in Rome as would be consistent with not abandoning Tradition (because Catholic Truth can only be in accordance with Tradition). But when in 1988 the Roman authorities backed him up against the wall by their implicit refusal to look after Tradition, then for him doctrine (Truth) finally took precedence over diplomacy (towards Authority, finally truthless).  And so he defied the Romans by consecrating four bishops, in “Operation Survival”, instead of “obeying” truthless Authority in what would have been “Operation Suicide”.“Operation Survival” ensured for his Society over two more decades of the primacy of doctrine (Truth), but then by striving to obtain official approval for theSociety, his successors turned the Society into the Newsociety, by preferring Authority (recognition by Rome) to Truth (the defence of the Faith). They were giving up on the Archbishop’s heart and soul – the heroic defence of that Truth which is the heart and soul of the Church. Their Newsociety might be more popular and more comfortable, but it would no longer be the stuff of martyrs.

                                                                                                                                          Kyrie eleison                                                                                                                                         

How can “good” Catholic churchmen go so wrong ?

The modernising influence is too strong.

ELEISON  COMMENTS  DCCXCVIII  (October 29, 2022) :  79  SEMINARIANS  –  I

Some good news for what can be called the Newsociety of St Pius X is that it had this year in its four major seminaries, taken together, a record intake of 79 young men taking action to try their vocations for the traditional Catholic priesthood : Flavigny (Econe), France 21; Zaitzkofen (Germany) 21; Dillwyn (USA) 28 and La Reja (Latin America) 9.  In today’s anti-traditional world this is an admirable feat, and while a number of these entrants will certainly not persevere all the way to the priesthood, nevertheless they represent a serious hope of many of them providing Catholic sacraments in, say, six years’ time.

By way of contrast, the only classical seminary of what can be called the “Resistance” movement in Morannes, France, has only one or two young men entering this year to try their vocation. At least one reader of these “Comments” is led to ask the question, should not the “Resistance”, from the moment that it started, have been structured with an organised Congregation and seminary, as was the Society of Archbishop Lefebvre, to collect and rally refugees and dissidents from that original SSPX instead of letting them just vanish into independent obscurity ?  The same reader grants that the substance or content of the Newsociety is no longer what it was under the Archbishop, but he attributes that decline rather to a lack of leadership than to a maintaining of structure and organisation, so that if only the “Resistance” had not tended to give up on structure, it might have succeeded better than, so to speak, one or two to 79.

The question is serious, and it has been there since the beginning of the “Resistance”, because Our Lord instituted the Catholic Church as the monarchy of a Pope (Peter) with Apostles (bishops) and Disciples (priests) and laity organised hierarchically beneath him, with every member of that hierarchy having a lawful Superior or Superiors up to and including the Pope, who answers to God for how he governs all Catholics beneath him. This structure is already clear in the New Testament from the very beginning of the Church, and it depends on the obedience of all Catholics to their respective Superiors for the Church to hold together, and to save souls for eternity by maintaining intact Catholic truth and morals. Moreover, by His own atrocious death on the Cross Our Lord gave to Catholics the sublime example of the obedience that they would need as His followers to do the will of their Father in heaven.

However, this obedience and the Church structure that goes with it is not an end in itself. Its final end or purpose is the salvation of souls for the glory of God. Thus the last Canon in the Church’s Code of Canon Law states that “The supreme law is the salvation of souls.” But souls cannot be saved unless they please God, they cannot please God without faith (Hebrews XI, 6). Therefore a prime purpose of Church Authority is to protect Catholic Truth amongst men from the ravages that will be caused to it by their original and personal sins. In other words, Catholic Truth is purpose and substance of Catholic Authority, and not the other way round. Thus in His Passion Our Lord tells Peter that Satan will put him to the trial, but Our Lord will be praying for his “faith not to fail”, and once Peter himself has “turned again” (understand, from his triple denial in the Truth), then let him use his Authority to “strengthen his brethren”, i.e. the other Apostles.  Truth is the basis of Peter’s Authority (Lk. XXII, 31).

But the heart and soul of the present crisis of the Church, unprecedented in all Church history, is that Vatican II (1962 to 1965) split Catholic Authority from Catholic Truth. From, now, six successive Popes downwards, the Catholic hierarchy has abandoned Catholic Tradition, forcing all Catholics who believe both in Truth and in Authority to become more or less schizophrenic. Had Archbishop Lefebvre not blazed the trail of returning to Tradition, i.e. Truth, never would there be these 79 vocations. But are they, in the Newsociety, going to be taught his greatest lesson ?  See these “Comments” next week.

                                                                                                                                             Kyrie eleison

God bless young men seeking God’s will today.

But will the structures teach it ?  We must pray.

ELEISON COMMENTS DCCXCVII (October 22, 2022) : LEO’S ROSARY

October is the month of the Holy Rosary, as instituted in 1883 in the reign of Pope Leo XIII (1878- 1903),
himself a fervent devotee of this second most important prayer, after the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass, in the
Roman Catholic Church. Between 1883 and 1898 he wrote 13 Encyclical Letters on the Rosary, almost
one every year, because he clearly considered it to be a major remedy for the growing evils of the modern
age in his day. The Rosary has not changed in nature since then. Those evils have only grown worse. Here
is why some English Catholics of the so-called “Resistance” are making a pilgrimage to the famous
English shrine of Walsingham in the county of Norfolk in one week’s time, as they have done for the last
two years, to pray a “Rosary Blast” under the ever greater threat of the third World War.
Meanwhile here is the briefest overview of those Encyclicals to see why the Pope of the Rosary, as one
may call him, gave to it such importance.
1883 : Supremi Apostolatus, an account of the great victories in history won by the Rosary, notably the
sea-battle of Lepanto in 1571, when a Catholic fleet defeated a far greater Muslim fleet, crippling for
years to come the Muslim threat to Christendom from the South-east (there is no question that if only
enough souls were praying seriously enough today the Rosary, Our Lady could prevent, or immensely
soften, the third World War – hence next week’s “Rosary Blast” – non-Catholics are welcome).
1884 : Superiori Anno, a request for the Rosary to be prayed for current problems in Italy, five Mysteries
before the Blessed Sacrament exposed, with the Litanies of Our Lady and Benediction.
1885 : Quod Auctoritate Apostolica, how the Rosary suits our age, is easy to perform, bears much fruit.
1886 : Saepe Numero, establishing the daily Rosary in Rome as an example for all dioceses to follow.
1887 : Vos Probe Nostis, how, once again, the Rosary can solve political problems, as nothing else can.
1889 : Quamquam Pluries, asking for resort to the Rosary against problems caused by Freemasonry.
1891 : Octobri Mense, a complete analysis of the Rosary, most important of Pope Leo’s Encyclicals on it.
1892 : Magnae Dei Matris, stating that the Rosary is “ a magnificent form of prayer, an effective way
to keep the faith and an outstanding model of perfect virtue.”
1893 : Laetitiae Sanctae, presenting the Rosary as a supernatural solution of social and political
problems. (This point cannot be emphasized too often for souls thinking that “prayer is only prayer.”
Prayer reaches God, especially through His Mother, and God is in supreme command of world events !
1894 : Jucunda Semper, how the Rosary is the summary of the whole Christian religion, through Mary.
1895 : Adjutricem Populi, how the Rosary’s final purpose is the Reign of Christ the King over all souls.
1896 : Fidentem Piumque, how we must fight for the Faith by not ceasing the Rosary prayed in common.
1898 : Diuturni Temporis summarises all Pope Leo’s 12 preceding Encyclicals on the Rosary.

Complete original texts of Papal Encyclicals in several languages can be found on the Internet at the
Vatican site : vatican.va/offices/papal_docs_list The abbreviations above draw heavily on the
October bulletin of a Society priest in France, accessible at cmrc@fsspx.fr Thank you, Fr. Castelain.
The “Rosary Blast” begins, God willing, at 17h00, GMT + 1, Thursday, October 27 with the first of ten
complete rosaries, with the last at 9h00, GMT, on Sunday, October 30, followed by Holy Mass. Contact
the site respicestellam2015@gmail.com for any further information or details.

Kyrie eleison

You really want to stop the third World War ?
Join in the “Blast”, to work by Heaven’s law !

This report tells of the taking of the habit of two Benedictine Nuns in the Convent associated with Santa Cruz monastery, Nova Friburgo, Brazil and there are plenty of pictures of the ceremony – https://www.mosteirodasantacruz.org/post/mais-duas-vesti%C3%A7%C3%B5es-no-convento-de-nossas-irm%C3%A3s-beneditinas

ELEISON  COMMENTS  DCCXCVI  (October 15th, 2022)

There is a good old proverb, maybe Chinese, which says, “The wise man blames himself, the fool blames others.” Not that others are never to blame, but that once I recognise that some blame belongs somewhere, I may myself be able to do at least something about it, whereas often I risk being powerless to get those that I want to blame to do anything about it. For instance, in today’s run-up to the potentially catastrophic World War Three, some Europeans are being tempted to blame either the United States, or Jews behind the United States, for the suicidal blindness of the European nations, behaving like puppets of the United States. But in a higher perspective, Europeans would be wiser to blame themselves.

For it is true that Jews exert enormous power in the United States, so that it is reported that four out of five members of the Cabinet by which President Biden governs the country are Jews, no doubt one reason for his earning the nickname of “President Bidenstein”. But who was responsible for electing President Biden, or at least for not rising up against the utter falsehood of his “election” in 2020, if not the American people as a whole ?  And if then Europeans want to blame Americans as a whole, who are Americans if not, centrally, the descendants of Europeans who emigrated from the Reformation onwards across the Atlantic ?  To the question of who is the central person in the history of the USA, is not Charles Coulombe’s answer, surprising at first view, of an Englishman – King Henry VIII – in fact very reasonable ?  Coulombe called his history of the United States “Puritans’ Progress”. Religion is decisive.

Closer to our own time, who, if not a European, signed the Balfour Declaration to promise to the Jews the Holy Land, if they would bring the USA into World War One on the side of England and France ?  And who, if not Europeans, to achieve the same purpose, arranged the trickery of the torpedoing of the “Lusitania” ?  Who then, if not Europeans, was responsible for the American soldiers tilting the balance of war against Germany in 1918, thus ensuring that American diplomats, with their President Wilson, would play also a decisive part in shaping the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, which was designed to bring on World War Two ?  And when it duly broke out in 1939, to resist the military might of a revived Germany what was the great hope of Europe overwhelmed if not to bring once more the United States to their aid, which President Roosevelt achieved by the trickery of Pearl Harbour in 1941 ?  And after World War Two, who, if not Europeans, relied on the United States to form, and largely pay for, the defensive alliance of NATO to protect Western Europe from the threat of invasion by the Red Army of Soviet Russia ?  Can President Trump be blamed for having wanted Europe to pay for its own defence ? 

But why would Americans be right in considering Europeans, then and now, to be too gutless and effete to defend “the West” for themselves ?  Because, as Hilaire Belloc said, “The Faith is Europe, and Europe is the Faith.”  But Europe has been losing the Faith steadily, ever since the Reformation in particular, which opened the way for Judeo-Masonry to begin turning “Christendom” into “Western civilisation”, by a process of decadence which reached its climax with Vatican II (1962-1965), where it was not the Potomac, the river of Washington, USA, but four countries of the Rhine which flowed into the River Tiber of Rome : France, Germany, Holland and Belgium.

For, once again, Europeans may well accuse Vatican II of having “americanised” the Church, and there is substance to the accusation, but while American cardinals and bishops at the Council vigorously promoted the adoption by the Catholic Church of their own country’s ideal of “religious liberty”, they had not the majority of votes on the floor of the Council.  Who did have ?  Frenchmen, Germans, Dutchmen and Belgians.  These latter completed the temporary victory of liberalism over the Catholic Church, but let us have patience.  Almighty God is far from having said His last word. 

                                                                                                                                         Kyrie  eleison.

Europe, there may be others worthy of blame,

But to yourself look firstly, in God’s name !

ELEISON  COMMENTS  DCCXCIV  (October 1, 2022) :  MISLED,  MISLEADING

There is a famous old saying of the Latins :  “Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.”

By the present moral decadence and suicidal foolishness of Europe, we know that it is going mad. It is much to be feared that it is letting itself be misled in a way for which is has only itself to blame, and is then helping to mislead the entire world. That is the argument of a certain Patrick Foy in a circular letter to

friends and interlocutors from the end of last August.  Notice how, typically for modern man, he makes no reference to the gods or to the one true God, but nothing in his clear analysis of the present state of Germany (where he lives) on the natural level contradicts a fully supernatural analysis, on the contrary.

Oh my goodness, Is Germany about to hit the wall ?  From what I’ve been reading, outside the inner precincts of the American mainstream media, the answer to that question appears to be, “Yes, if nothing changes, the wall will be hit this winter.” Certainly, the possibility is there. It all comes down to the Washington-instigated war in Ukraine and the fact that Germany as well as the rest of Europe have been foolish enough to swallow Washington’s false narrative and follow its self-destructive lead. 

The off-ramp to a negotiated settlement with Ukraine, prior to the Russian intervention on February 24th, was blown up when the EU and NATO, basically Germany and France, walked away from the Minsk II agreement in 2014.  That agreement, which Ukraine signed, with France and Germany as guarantors, would have provided a degree of autonomy within Ukraine for parts of Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine. If you look at the current battlefield map, it is this limited area which Russia now occupies. It is this area that wanted to break away from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. The Russian population there had been asking Putin for help ever since the CIA and Neo-con battle-axe Victoria Nuland orchestrated the 2014 coup in Kiev, which overthrew the elected government. 

There is no need to go into the sorry details. The point is, Washington picked up the phone to Berlin and Paris, and said, quash Minsk II !  Negotiations with Moscow were throttled. Minsk II was jettisoned. This led directly and logically to the war we now have, and to the subsequent overwhelming sanctions against Russia, dictated again by Washington. It seems to me to have been part of a plan. That clown in London, Boris Johnson, encouraged Berlin and Paris in their folly. Now Europe’s economy is collapsing from lack of energy which Russia routinely supplied. Russia was not (and is not) an enemy of Europe. It was a partner. But as soon as Germany and France threw Minsk II overboard, and let Washington dictate the agenda, Europe was doomed. Evidently, European leaders cannot conceive of their own best interests. It is so much easier to take orders from Washington. 

David Stockman, President Reagan’s budget guru in the 1980’s, summarized the economic consequences best in his August 23rd posting, “Winter is coming.”  He wrote that Europe’s self-inflicted loss of Russian energy supplies, promulgated by Washington, will mean “literally millions of dark and freezing homes in Europe, and energy prices shooting to the moon.”

Maybe things will not be that bad, says Foy, but it was all unnecessary, both the war in Ukraine, and the sanctions against Russia that have boomeranged, and the ultimate results for the entire world. It may be, concludes Foy, that Berlin, Paris and London have all  become lap-dogs that can no longer think for themselves, but mainly to be blamed are the masterminds in Washington, meddling in European affairs, ever since the end of the Cold War in 1989.                                                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                                  Kyrie eleison.

Men want instead of God to run the world.

Watch the disaster being by men unfurled !

Message from Fr Deivid Nass, SAJM –

Our dear Father Joaquim, a monk at the monastery of Father Jahir, Marianos, in Bahia, has a kidney tumour and everything indicates that it is malignant and even very serious.
We are starting a big crusade of prayer for him today because the final biopsy will be done this Tuesday and the type of tumour will become better known. Let’s hope in God for a miracle!
The preparatory and investigative examinations are private and very expensive, we would be very grateful if we could count on the charity of our friends. Any donations can be made through —

Account name: ROGERIO QUEIROZ PEREIRA

BIC: TRWIBEB1XXX
IBAN: BE60 9671 6296 0770
Bank address: Avenue Louise 54, Room S52
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Or an American account –

Name of account: ROGERIO QUEIROZ PEREIRA
Routing number: 084009519
Número da conta: 9600000000222936
Type of account: Current
Bank address: 30 W. 26th Street, Sixth Floor
New York NY 10010
United States

ELEISON  COMMENTS  DCCXCIII  (September 24, 2022)

On the eve of the Feast of the Assumption appeared in “Atlantic” magazine in the USA an article which caused a little stir by associating the Rosary with right-wing violence and terrorism. Written by a certain Daniel Palleton based in Toronto, Canada, it was entitled  “How Extremist Gun Culture Is Trying to Co-opt the Rosary”, and it was sub-titled “Why are sacramental beads suddenly showing up next to AR-15s online?” (The AR–15–style rifle is a popular lightweight semi-automatic rifle.) Here is a  summary of the 13 paragraphs of Panneton’s article :– 

1  Rad-Trad (i.e. radical-Traditional) Catholics are turning the Rosary into a weapon of violence.   2  It shows on the Internet in their social-media pages, where they have thousands of followers. 3 Thus associated with extreme right-wingers’ violence and racism, the Rosary prepares for real-world terrorism. 4 Indeed the Rosary has long been associated with the fight of the Church Militant against its enemies. 5  In mainstream Catholicism the Rosary is no threat, but rad-trad Catholics are not mainstream. 6  They are militia-minded masculinists, playing at war-games,     7  with their own cottage industry of services and goods for sale, including “combat rosaries”.    8  They have masculine fantasies of resorting to violence in defence of their families or churches. 9  Formerly distrusted by Christian nationalists, they are now increasingly accepted among them.  10 Indeed Rad-trads and Christian nationalists are coming to share an ideal of “righteous violence.”  11  These two sides may still be divided in matters of doctrine and religion,  12  but they can and do make common cause, for instance in their homophobia and hostility towards abortion.  13  Rad-Trads are meant to love and forgive, but today they are turning the Holy Rosary into a weapon of violence and physical war.

Where Panneton is right is that there is a huge war going on between “left” and “right” warriors all over the world. It is a huge war because for both sides it is a sacred crusade. This is because it is in fact a war for or against God. Because Almighty God is today so widely discounted and discredited, normal “lefties” may not understand why their own fight is such a crusade to destroy the last remains of Christendom, but crusade it is for them. As for “right-wingers”, they cripple their own crusade to defend or conserve post-Christian decency if they do not base it on God, who is their basic strength. A notable example is their fight against abortion. If these right-wingers go on preferring to do without God, their reversal of “Roe v. Wade” will be reversed once more. Sharing the “lefties’” unconcern for God makes many “right-wingers” hardly any better.

Therefore if the Rosary has always truly been a great means of defending Christendom as in 1571 at Lepanto, in 1683 at Vienna, in 1955 in Austria, that is because it is so centred on God, on Our Lord and Our Lady. Only if today’s Rosary warriors are truly turning away from God to fight left-wingers with the weapons used by left-wingers to fight God, is Panneton right. But if those praying the Rosary forget all about right- or left-wingers when they use it to fill themselves with the interests of God, then certainly, once more, the Rosary can save Christendom.                                                                          

                                                                                                                                    Kyrie eleison.

God is not served by merely human fights,                                                                                   But only by the drive to serve His rights.

 

 

ELEISON  COMMENTS   DCCCXCII  (Sept. 17th, 2022) :   IS   GOD  SELFISH  ?

A reader writes in with an objection to the goodness of God which he knows to be false, but which nevertheless perturbs him, and to which he has for a long time found no answer that satisfies him. Here is the problem –

1   To command somebody,  “Love me, or I will blow out your brains,” is both selfish, because it is self-centred; and ridiculous, because threats cannot produce true love.

2   But God says just that when He says to His human creatures, “If you do not love Me, you will go to Hell.”

3   Therefore (it is Satan that speaks) God is both selfish and ridiculous.

In order to answer this objection to the love of God, let us see firstly what is the truth about what God says to His human creatures when, by Himself creating their immortal souls and infusing them into the material bodies put together by their two human parents, He brings human beings into existence : “My dear child, by giving you life and free-will, I mean you so to make use of your life on earth that when you die you will have deserved to share My eternal bliss with Me in My Heaven. But I will not force you to come to My Heaven, because if I forced you I would make you into a robot, and robots cannot enjoy My Heaven. I will leave you entirely free not to come to My Heaven if you do not want to do so. Choosing Hell will be entirely your own decision.

Now it is true that powerful influences such as the world, the flesh and the Devil will do their best to make you prefer Hell to Heaven, and it is true that a majority of men to whom I give life, end up by preferring Hell to Heaven, but in every case that will have been their own free choice, and I will no more have forced them to choose Hell than I force anybody to choose Heaven. And note that the more evil have been the influences they will have resisted in order to prefer My Heaven, the more glorious and happy that Heaven will be for them. So the evil has a purpose, and while I do not want it, I do want to allow it, precisely so that I can make it serve the eternal bliss of those who refuse evil.

And if you object to Me that in the modern world the confusion and the evil are overwhelming and are too strong for many souls to resist, I reply to you that whenever the evil really does become too much, as in the time of Noah (who still resisted it), I can intervene, as I did with the Flood. In fact the Flood saved for eternity many souls that would otherwise have given way to the corruption, so it was a great act of My Mercy. In the 21^st century, just wait for Me to give you a great Warning, announced notably by the four girls of Garabandal in Spain in the 1960’s. It will give a great help from all the confusion towards salvation through Jesus Christ, but only if souls themselves freely choose that they want to be saved.

Now let us apply these truths to the three propositions of the original objection above –

1   To say to anybody “Love me or I will kill you”, is selfish if he who says it says it primarily himself to be loved. But God in Himself is in utter and unchanging bliss. Only externally to Himself does He gain anything by souls sharing His bliss. That bliss He wants for them primarily for their sake, not for Himself.

Nor is God ridiculous. Of course He wants no forced love. He leaves us entirely free to love Him, or not.

2   It is true that if we do not love God as we should, so that we die in a state of mortal sin, then we will have deserved Hell. But once in Hell, a large part of the torture will be to see with the utmost clarity just how easily I could have saved my soul, with all the help and graces that God gave me in my life on earth. But freely I chose not to want His help, and so what I am suffering now is entirely my own fault.

3   So God is not at all saying, “Love Me, or I will blow your brains out.” He is neither selfish nor ridiculous.

                                                                                                                                               Kyrie eleison

Love, if not freely given, is amiss.

God wants us free to choose, or not, His Bliss.