The Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ

I had thought to begin by saying I am not a Fatima Nut . Then it seemed strange. After all, I would not think to begin by saying I am no octogenarian; or not a postman; or I am not a teetotaller. In fact, the only reason I can readily think of that a man would start out by saying what he is not is that he really was but didn’t want to let on.

But for Fatima Nuts, octogenarians, postmen, and teetotallers, I have only the greatest sympathy; in the sense of commiseration as concerns the first three and in the sense of pity as concerns the last. While I heartily recommend tea as part of a well-considered plan of fluid intake, I fail entirely to understand why a body would voluntarily subscribe to so plainly depraved a creed as teetotalism.

So on the issue of Fatima Nuttery I need not offer an opinion. The reader will doubtless decide himself to which genus of nut I am allied. But these are matters for a different day.

At any rate I think almost never of Fatima, and yet I was thinking of it lately, the “errors of Russia” in particular. I was kind of wondering what was meant by the phrase. After consideration, to summarize, it would seem the encompassing error of Russia was to suppose itself, the state, on top of the great heap of the universe, able and free to do anything.

What does a society in the grip of these errors look like, and how far has it spread?

Would such a state, like Germany these recent weeks, suppose itself entitled to impose indoctrination on children against the will of their parents? Would it, like my own beleaguered Canada, suppose itself even able to rejig nature and reinvent the family? Other examples abound.

Clearly these regimes and the cultures under them have lost perspective. They show signs of getting worse. Getting worse, much worse, is the only course for one who cannot see the only real fixed point.

The solution is before us this Sunday.

[P]eace could not be more effectually restored nor fixed upon a firmer basis than through the restoration of the Empire of Our Lord.
…
[T]ruly the whole of mankind is subject to the power of Jesus Christ. Nor is there any difference in this matter between the individual and the family or the State; for all men, whether collectively or individually, are under the dominion of Christ.
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It would be a grave error… to say that Christ has no authority whatever in civil affairs
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With God and Jesus Christ… excluded from political life, with authority derived not from God but from man, the very basis of that authority has been taken away…The result is that human society is tottering to its fall, because it has no longer a secure and solid foundation.
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The rebellion of individuals and states against the authority of Christ has produced deplorable consequences. …the seeds of discord sown far and wide; those bitter enmities and rivalries between nations, which still hinder so much the cause of peace; that insatiable greed which is so often hidden under a pretense of public spirit and patriotism, and gives rise to so many private quarrels; a blind and immoderate selfishness, making men seek nothing but their own comfort and advantage, and measure everything by these; no peace in the home, because men have forgotten or neglect their duty; the unity and stability of the family undermined; society in a word, shaken to its foundations and on the way to ruin.

We firmly hope, however, that the feast of the Kingship of Christ, which in future will be yearly observed, may hasten the return of society to our loving Savior.

It would be the duty of Catholics to do all they can to bring about this happy result.
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Therefore by Our Apostolic Authority We institute the Feast of the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ to be observed yearly throughout the whole world on the last Sunday of the month of October .

Quas Primas
Pius XI

Viva El Novus Ordo!

Good news this week from the banana republic that is Newfangled Catholicism.

But does it seem odd to anybody else that while there are absolutely no circumstances in which a layman is permitted to purify a chalice, there are, in the apparent view of the Vatican, countless circumstances in which he is justified in groping the Sacred Species?

Is it too much to hope for a little congruity?

I’m just asking.

How does it go again? "A house divided against itself is juuust fine!"

"What contradictions? It's, like, a New Springtime! Let's clap for a while and then, we'll hug!"

Organic Food is of the Devil

"Lord, we don't need another meadow
There are cornfields and wheat fields enough to grow"

More wisdom from Burt Bacharach, because I like a good theme now and then.

The Jesuits of Guelph, Ontario run an organic farm. This right here tells you something is amiss. Remember:

If Jesuits are doing it, it is unwholesome.

Not every single time, I know, but close enough. Let us resolve never to let exceptions get in the way of rules. Otherwise before long we will end up running around like some neutered modern numbskull saying foolish things like "it's not black and white!" and calling evil things "nuanced" and believing it.

Organic farming produces somewhere in the area of forty percent less food than conventional methods would on the same space. So with forty percent less food coming off the land we are left to decide whether to make up the difference by cutting down forests for farmland, or to starve people.

Neither is the kind of cause much to help leftists with their fundraising (although, come to it, I suspect they would rather starve a child than cut down a tree. Cutting down trees is, to the pinko-pagan, really, really bad). This, of course, is one more bit of evidence that loathsome communists (such as make up the greater living part of the Jesuits and the Left at large) are utterly unable to think through anything at all. In turn, it explains why they can't ever say sensible things and so often find themselves frustrated and angry instead.

Moreover this is why organic food is of the Devil. It opposes God's first commandment: Be fruitful and multiply. It supports the depopulationists' myth that there are not sufficient resources to go around. Good people will not want to participate.

Bishops say the Darndest Things

Bishops aren’t always easy to understand.

Last week Winnipeg’s Archbishop Weisgerber called the Canadian Patriotic Bishops “guardians of long traditions of wisdom”. But he didn’t say the bishops are themselves wise, neither did he comment on the quality of their guardianship. Guardians, after all, can sometimes neglect their wards, or forget them, or even assault them. So considered, His Grace made sense.

But like when a veterinarian tells you your goldfish has strained vocal cords, a supposed expert can sometimes say the kind of singularly asinine thing that makes you think you will be best to disregard him entirely and from now on.

That’s what happened when Bishop Skylstad said “We’re a church of unity and of common worship”.

Charity and big fat Stupid Heretics

Hilary is jubilant. She has been noticed by Michael Higgins.

But I noticed something else.

Dr. Higgins in the Catholic Register:

There is a new and disturbing rise in aggressiveness among those who fashion themselves the defenders of orthodoxy... The first casualty is charity. ...there has been an increase in the spitefulness ...this accelerated trend to monitoring and denouncing should be deplored by all who genuinely care for the community of faith.

...Increasingly in our society people are lamenting the decline of courtesy and many groups are struggling to restore civility to social discourse. Perhaps as Catholics we can lead the way.

Dr. Higgins in the Toronto Star:

The egregious stupidity of this theologically handicapped and artistically illiterate pastor continues to dumbfound me these many, many months later.

Quite so.

Then help us, Dr. Higgins, to know. Lead us on to courtesy, you charitable chappy of chappies! Are you a hypocrite, a fool, or a knave, or can you think of something else? What is the most charitable conclusion?

Poo, Tobacco, and the Wisdom of Burt Bacharach (or, Nobody Likes a Chatty Damnus)

To have a horror of tobacco is not to have an abstract standard of right; but exactly the opposite. It is to have no standard of right whatever; and to make certain local likes and dislikes as a substitute

-G.K. Chesterton


On a day last week it was warm and I was driving with my window open through the countryside. My pipe was lit and I was especially enjoying the smoke. The radio was playing What the World Needs Now is Love.

I pause here to acknowledge that some among traditional Catholics will hold that listening to the music of Burt Bacharach is itself a compromise with the world and indecorous for the Catholic gentleman. The potential accuracy of this position is beyond the scope of the current discussion and not the point of the story, so kindly stuff it.

Indulging in a moment of uncharacteristic levity, I was feeling good about nearly everything and pondering Mister Bacharach’s bold claim that love (sweet love in particular) is the only thing that there’s just too little of.

How wrong you are, Good Mister Bacharach, I thought and said aloud. Prudence, I thought, is in short supply; so I shouted that out. And good government! Feeling giddy and boisterous, I shouted “And Canadian Bishops with two fully functioning of those bits as are proper and unique to men!” only in far fewer words and with alliteration.

I was warming to the subject.

Alas, my pleasant country drive and attendant merriment was quickly to come under attack, and unexpectedly. I realized to my terrific distress that my pipe was now spent and the only thing that there was just too little of was tobacco in the tin to light it again.

At that precise moment, the radio station lost reception and picked up another signal. Mister Bacharach was intruded upon by some, I suppose, horrible pop-strumpet of a vacant bottle-blonde starlet singing something every bit as unfortunate as she was.

You can imagine my dismay then, when at once, the gloriously agreeable lingering aroma of buttered rum was overcome completely by the wholly disagreeable stink of poo (precisely to which barnyard animal it belonged I could not say).

Still boisterous, but decidedly less giddy, I swore, turned off the radio, and closed my window. This order was deliberate as the sound on the radio offended my senses more than the smell in the air; the latter being only a risk inherent in country drives and it wasn’t like it was on my shoe or anything.

But let it never be said that the demons cannot cobble together a little concerted effort now and then.

But I digress.

Returning to tobacco and a standard of right I had meant to say something about the filthy commies that generally run things working to ruin all the best and harmless vices like tobacco smoking and fistfighting whilst ignoring or normalizing or promoting and funding all the really soul-destroying ones. Concerted demonic efforts, you see. Even Catholic parents fall into it, and I do wish we’d keep our attention on the things that really aren’t harmless.

You may say that pipe-smoking isn’t harmless, what with tongue cancer and whatnot, and yet even those who love me best will see in the removal of my tongue, little evil.

Besides, if a man’s to have a vice (and I don’t think I trust one who isn’t) it’s better for thee to go into life maimed or lame, than having, say, your cancer-free tongue still in your head, to be cast into everlasting fire.

So pluck it out, Brother. Nobody likes a chatty damnus.

Uncommon Sense

This is where I fool myself for a moment that I have readership that the Cornell Society does not. If such a one exists, I direct you to this.

It neatly makes the point I took three posts to do a wee while back, and ruins (again) the postconciliar method of inventing a black cloud for every bit of preconciliar silver lining:

"I often think of the businessmen who, in the time before the council were the primary attenders of those famous "22 minute" low Masses -- often made so short so those men could catch a train to work, or in some other way move speedily to the next duty in their state in life. These are mocked as the worst of the old way, but to my mind they show how the priests and people of the unruined Catholic culture of those days understood something that our experts cannot: that those men were *at daily Mass* and wanted to make it a part of their daily lives in a way that few can, or wish to, today."

Stupid Things to Say

With rumours and reports running wild concerning the traditional Mass, two things keep being repeated that prove sin darkens the intellect. There are stupid people on every side (and some of us merely lack charity).

From the wacky-trads: “Quo Primum blah blah blah allows the traditional Mass in perpetuity”.

This is not first-pope-out-of-the-gate-wins, as if the Tradition of the Church is a game of calling shotgun. You are making traditionalists look stupid. The next time you feel an urge to cite Quo Primum, roll in thorns until the feeling passes.


From the Newfangled Catholics we hear the very poor rhetorical question “If the old Mass was so great, and all the priests and bishops were formed in it, how come things fell apart so quickly after the Council?”

To which I reply: Original Sin, you Dunderhead.

Just for fun, let’s test the theory with substitutes:

“If Almighty God and His Creation was so great, how come Adam and Eve tried to improve on it with an apple?”

“If the Blessed Apostle Paul was so great at founding Churches, how come Corinth needed an epistle barely five years later to tell them to, like, quit fornicating and stuff?”

Yes, yes. You’ve proven your case: Eden was gloomy, Saint Paul couldn’t teach his way out of a paper bag, and the Traditional Mass was rubbish. Super job.