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Dear Friends and Benefactors,
Exactly 50 years ago Archbishop sent a Lenten instruction
to his faithful in Dakar on the urgency of prayer, provoked by the explosive
situation in the world which, as he quoted Pope Pius XII saying, "has been
caused by the religious tepidity of so many, by the lowering of the moral
standards both in private and in public life, by the deliberate and systematic
poisoning of simple souls" (Pastoral Letters, p. 31). The politics
have changed, as the freemasonic one world order, the Novus Ordo Seculorum,
continually advances. But the root problem has not changed. If society today is
in a much worse crisis than 50 years ago it is because the secularism that
followed the first and second world wars has grown exponentially due to the
third world war of Vatican II.
Secularism is to most people a nebulous and vague term
without precise meaning. It is certainly true that secularism is a complex state
of mind with many different manifestations, and that it frequently resorts to
hazy ideas and equivocations to promote its agenda. However, it does have an
agenda, and it was clearly defined by the bishops of Italy in a pastoral letter
issued on the eve of Vatican II (March 25, 1960). They defined it as "a
purely naturalistic conception of life which either formally rejects religious
values or at least relegates them to consciences and the mystic dimness of
churches, refusing them entrance to man’s public life (his philosophical,
juridical, scientific, economic, social, political activity and so on) and
denying their right to exercise an influence in these fields" (Ib. p.
130). Furthermore, they pointed out that the most widespread, and hence
the most dangerous, form is not atheism but the less radical form that admits
God and religion "but refuses to see in the supernatural order a living
reality, active in human history" and according to which "religious
beliefs are an exclusively private affair".
Secularism is the apostasy of society from God which
prompted Saint Pius X in his first encyclical to call for the restoration of all
things in Christ. "For who can fail to see that society is at the present
time, more than in any past age, suffering from a terrible and deep-rooted
malady which, developing every day and eating into its inmost being, is dragging
it to destruction?" (E supremi apostolatus, §3) This secularism was
also condemned by Pope Pius XI in his first encyclical Ubi Arcano, where
he defined it as "a kind of moral, juridical and social modernism" and
condemned it just as formally as dogmatic modernism. It was likewise because he
saw so clearly that the manifold evils of the modern world came from the
rejection of Christ and his holy law from daily life, that he instituted the
feast of Christ the King and promulgated the encyclical Quas Primas, "for as
long as individuals and States refused to submit to the rule of our Savior,
there would be no really hopeful prospect of a lasting peace among nations".
Great is the tragedy to now
witness such progress of this secular humanism as to see it daily promoted by
the successor of these great Popes. This is how John Paul II began his January
24 discourse to 200 leaders of the world’s religions:
"We have come to Assisi on a pilgrimage of peace. We
are here as representatives of different religions to examine ourselves before
God concerning our commitment to peace, to ask him for this gift, to bear
witness to our shared longing for a world of greater justice and solidarity."
This peace is not the supernatural peace of submission to the reign of Christ
the King, but the humanistic peace of "solidarity", getting on together.
Forgetting that if Saint Francis was an instrument of peace, it was only because
he was such a lover of Christ crucified as to bear his stigmata, he dared
suggest that Saint Francis shared the same humanist ideals as the
representatives of these pagan religions:
"We are meeting in Assisi, where everything speaks of
a singular prophet of peace known as Francis. He is loved not only by
Christians, but by many other believers and by people who, though far removed
from religion, identify with his ideals of justice, reconciliation and peace" (Ib. §2).
What a shameful misrepresentation! The following day, at a luncheon
celebration at the Vatican for all these infidels, he proclaimed that this
desire for humanistic peace is what God expects of them:
"With all our differences, we sit at this table,
united in our commitment to the cause of peace. That commitment, born of
sincere religious sentiment, is surely what God expects of us. It is
what the world seeks of religious men and women".
It is indeed what the world seeks, but it is utter nonsense to say that it is
what God expects of these unbelievers in the divinity of Christ, let alone of
the Vicar of Christ.
My message for Lent is that we
must all fight against this secularism. If other generations of Catholics have
fought and lost, despite the stern warnings of the pre-Vatican II Popes, we also
can lose. We can also slide down the slippery slope of underestimating the
supernatural value of the Church’s teaching, rules and sacraments; we also can
give priority to earthly means to solve the enormous social and human problems
that we see all around us; we also can get so caught up with the material
details of work, with family conflicts and problems, with fun and friends, as to
put the practice of our Faith on a back burner. We also can, and often do, back
down from the audacity of the Cross, stumbling-block to the Jews and foolishness
to the Gentiles.
If your Faith is to go beyond the "commitment" of "sincere
religious sentiment", if you are not to be "conformed to this world; but
(to) be reformed in the newness of your mind, that you may prove what is the
good, and the acceptable, and the perfect will of God" (Rm 12:2),
your prayers to Christ Crucified must penetrate your daily life. It is not
enough to pray on Sunday, or occasionally, or alone. We must pray many times
during the day, we must pray with our friends and acquaintances and especially
our families, and we must pray with the recollection and devotion that enables
our prayers to have a virtual influence on everything that we say and do. Our
continual prayers through and with Christ crucified alone can give us the
supernatural perspective to fight against secularism, that every breath of ours
might echo the words of the great Saint Paul: "With Christ I am nailed to the
cross. And I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me." (Gal 2:19,20).
This is what Archbishop Lefebvre
had to say 50 years ago:
"In this age of mental
blindness and hardness of heart, my dear brethren, we have a duty, a most
solemn duty, and that is to pray, to put our hands together and beg Almighty
God to save the world. More than ever the situation demands that we raise our
hearts and minds to God, that we reawaken in ourselves the virtues of piety
and devotion which were infused into us by the Blood of Christ at our Baptism." (Ib. p. 32)
He continues to explain in the same letter how it is possible to pray always,
in fulfillment of Our Lord’s command, in virtue of the constant influence that
our prayers can have on our daily life:
"Let us not forget that our
prayer must be the expression of the interior disposition of our soul, of an
attitude of devotion and adoration which will render the obligation to pray
easy and pleasant and enjoyable. That is why Our Lord tells us to pray at all
times" (Ib.
p. 33).
I throw the same gauntlet out to you. Are you regular in
the recitation of your morning, night and before and after meal prayers? Do you
pray the Holy Ghost for inspiration in your family and work difficulties? Do you
renew your consecration to the Holy Mother of God every day? Do you stop to
visit the Blessed Sacrament, or make a spiritual Communion, or assist at a
weekday Mass when you can? Do you recite the Holy Rosary in family every day? Do
you pray the Angelus three times a day? Have you kept up with your daily
meditations, or have you given up because it is too difficult, which means that
you do not love Our Lord and Our Blessed Mother enough? Have you consecrated
your family to the Sacred Heart, and if not why not; and if you have, have you
done your holy hour as a family on First Fridays and renewed your consecration?
Have you removed from your family life the grave obstacles that will prevent
recollection and stop you from praying always, such as worldly friends,
television, internet, rock music, immodesty, indecent magazines? If our answer
is negative on any of these counts, we will be no match for the endemic
secularism that surrounds us. We will walk the path of least resistance, and
fall into the trap of lukewarm indifference, as so many good Catholics have done
before us.
May God grant us the grace to
take up this challenge courageously, and to live a life of reparation, that is
of true love, and may the Mother of Sorrows help us to understand the
blessedness of those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Yours faithfully in the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts,
Fr. Peter R. Scott
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