Ecce Verbum

Absolute monarch Pope Pius IX (presiding over Vat I) provided clarity to the objections of German Chancellor Bismarck in 1875: "The application of the term 'absolute monarch' to the pope in reference to ecclesiastical affairs is not correct because he is subject to divine laws and is bound by the directives given by Christ for his Church. The pope cannot change the constitution given to the Church by her divine founder, as an earthly ruler can change the constitution of a State. In all essential points the constitution of the Church is based on divine directives, and therefore it is not subject to human arbitrariness..." "...it is certainly not the Catholic Church that has embraced the immoral and despotic principle that the command of a superior frees one unconditionally from all personal responsibility." As the Vatican Council has expressed the idea in clear and precise words and as the nature of the matter requires, infallibility is a characteristic of the papacy that refers exclusively to the supreme Magesterium of the pope; it is coextensive with the area of the infallible Magesterium of the Church in general, and it is restricted to the contents of Holy Scripture and tradition and also to the dogmas previously defined by the teaching authority of the Church." *Document: Responses of the Circular Letter of Chancellor Bismarck on the Interpretation of the Constitution Pastor Aeternus of the First Vatican Council". January-March 1875. *Citation found in Denzinger-Hünermann 3112-3117

Reflections on the Decline of Masculinity Dr. John C. Rao "The Vikings indulged a passion for blood that far surpassed anything that the Germans ever experienced. They reveled in their annual excursions to a terrified Europe, their looting and burning of monasteries, and their destruction of the pitiful remnants of order on the Continent. So much was the warrior the only valuable member of Viking society that his widow was herself put to death when he met his end. Did the Church seek to destroy the Germanic and Viking spirit root-and-branch? Not at all. It simply sought to transform it into the spirit of Christian knighthood. Gradually, over the course of centuries, it began to succeed in this end. The ceremony admitting a man into the ranks of the warrior nobility was no longer, as it once had been, a mere slap administered by a chieftain on the battlefield. Instead, it was enveloped in religious language and ritual, designed to emphasize the soldier’s duty to uphold the law of Christ. The idea of chivalry changed under Christian pressure, and came to mean more than simply the life of a horseman. It began to signify the life of a Christian gentleman, a man who not only kept his word to his lord, but also protected the Church, the poor, and the defenseless, and who exhibited a new reverence and respect for women, while fighting only for the noblest of causes. True, chivalry also came to mean many worldly concerns of which the Church might disapprove. This was due to the fact that ther influences, like the notion of courtly love, were also at work in shaping it. Still, none of these influences defended the earlier barbarian ideal." article

The relationship of philosophy to theology Lecture by Benedict VXI at the University of Rome  

Knowing and Loving In fact it is knowing that causes love and gives birth to it. It is not possible to attain love of anything that is beautiful without first learning how beautiful it is. Since this knowledge is sometimes very ample and complete and at other times imperfect, it follows that the philtre of love has a corresponding effect. Some things that are beautiful and good are perfectly known and perfectly loved as befits so great beauty. Others are not clearly evident to those who love them, and love of them is thus more feeble. Nicholas Cabasilas, The Life in Christ, DeCatanzaro, tr. St. Vladimir's Seminary Press (Crestwood, NY: 1974) p. 89.

St. Augustine's theology of witness and the fate of the Jewish nation https://voegelinview.com/augustine-on-love-justice-and-pluralism-in-human-nature/

Love in marriage as communion and complementarity “The words of the Book of Genesis contain that truth about man which is confirmed by the very experience of humanity. Man is created ‘from the very beginning’ as male and female: the life of all humanity —whether of small communities or of society as a whole—is marked by this primordial duality. From it there derive the ‘masculinity’ and the ‘femininity’ of individuals, just as from it every community draws its own unique richness in the mutual fulfilment of persons. This is what seems to be meant by the words of the Book of Genesis: ‘Male and female he created them’ (Gen 1:27). Here too we find the first statement of the equal dignity of man and woman: both, in equal measure, are persons. Their constitution, with the specific dignity which derives from it, defines ‘from the beginning’ the qualities of the common good of humanity, in every dimension and circumstance of life. To this common good both man and woman make their specific contribution. Hence one can discover, at the very origins of human society, the qualities of communion and of complementarity.” “The sacramental union of the two spouses, sealed in the covenant which they enter into before God, endures and grows stronger as the generations pass. It must become a union in prayer. But for all this to become clearly apparent during the Year of the Family, prayer needs to become a regular habit in the daily life of each family. Prayer is thanksgiving, praise of God, asking for forgiveness, supplication and invocation. In all of these forms the prayer of the family has much to say to God. It also has much to say to others, beginning with the mutual communion of persons joined together by family ties.” “Love causes man to find fulfilment through the sincere gift of self. To love means to give and to receive something which can be neither bought nor sold, but only given freely and mutually.” “Love then is not a utopia: it is given to mankind as a task to be carried out with the help of divine grace. It is entrusted to man and woman, in the Sacrament of Matrimony, as the basic principle of their ‘duty’, and it becomes the foundation of their mutual responsibility: first as spouses, then as father and mother. In the celebration of the Sacrament, the spouses give and receive each other, declaring their willingness to welcome children and to educate them. On this hinges human civilization, which cannot be defined as anything other than a ‘civilization of love’.” from a letter to families (Gratissimam Sane), John Paul II

On Patience Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange "In your patience you shall possess your souls." Luke 21:19 In the difficult periods through which we have to pass, we should remember what our Lord has told us about the virtue of fortitude, which is necessary that we may not be frightened by any menace, or arrested in the way of salvation by any obstacle. We shall treat here especially of the virtue of patience, which is the most frequent form under which fortitude of soul is exercised in the vexations of life. In the Christian it should be united to meekness, and in such a way that those who are naturally meek may learn to become strong, and those who are naturally inclined to the virtue of fortitude may become meek with the meaning given to the term by the evangelical beatitude: "Blessed are the meek." Thus both will ascend toward the same summit, although by different paths [....] Patience and Longanimity, Twin Columns of the Interior Life Patience, says St. Thomas (cf. Summa Th., IIa IIae, q. 135, a. 1), is a virtue attached to the virtue of fortitude, which hinders a man from departing from right reason illumined by faith by yielding to difficulties and to sadness. It makes [100] him bear the evils of life with equanimity of soul, says St. Augustine (De patientia, chap. 2), without allowing himself to be troubled by vexations. The impatient man, no matter how violent he may be, is a weak man; when he raises his voice and murmurs, he really succumbs from the moral point of view. The patient man, on the contrary, puts up with an inevitable evil in order to remain on the right road, to continue his ascent toward God. Those who bear adversity that they may attain what their pride desires, have not the virtue of patience but only its counterfeit, hardness of heart. By patience the soul truly possesses itself about the fluctuations of the sensible part depressed by sadness. The martyrs are in the highest degree masters of themselves and free. In patience is met again something of the principal act of the virtue of fortitude: the enduring of painful things without weakening. It is more difficult and meritorious, says St. Thomas, to endure for a long time what keenly vexes nature than to attack an adversary in a moment of enthusiasm [1]. It is more difficult for a soldier to hold out for a long time under a shower of bullets in a cold damp trench than with all the ardor of his temperament to take part in an attack. If the virtue of fortitude bears the blows that may cause death, as we see in the soldier who dies for his country and still more in the martyr who dies for the faith, the virtue of patience endures unflinchingly the contradictions of life (cf. Summa, IIa IIae, q. 136, a 4). Thus we see that this virtue of patience is the guardian of other virtues; it protects them against the disorders that impatience would cause; it is like a buttress of the spiritual edifice. [...] To have patience as a solid virtue, man must be in the state of [101] grace and have charity, which prefers God to everything else, no matter what the cost. For this reason St. Paul says: "Charity is patient" (1 Cor. 13:4). If the contradictions of life last for a long time without interruption, as happens in the case of a person forced to live with someone who continually tantalizes him, then there is need of longanimity, a special virtue resembling patience. It is called longanimity because of the length of the trial, the duration of the suffering, the insults, all that must be borne for months and years. As St. Francis de Sales points out (Introduction to a Devout Life, Pt. III, chap. 3: Of Patience), patience makes us preserve equanimity of mind in the midst of the variableness of the diverse mishaps of this mortal life. "Let us frequently call to mind," he says, "that as our Lord has saved us by patient sufferings, so we also ought to work out our salvation by sufferings and afflictions, enduring injuries and contradictions, with all possible meekness....

Napoleon's new system of law and the Social Kingship of Christ "Napoleon declared he was prouder of the legal code that bears his name than all his military victories as a soldier. By codifying the whole flood of laws emanating from revolutionary assemblies, this consolidator of the French Revolution accomplished more than on the battlefields. Napoleon’s legal expert, Jean-Jacques Cambacèrès and his cronies managed to give a semblance of order to the chaos of revolutionary rationalist legislation concerned only with appearances of the natural order and utterly ignorant of the supernatural order. (Jean-Jacques-Régis de Cambacérès (1753-1824) was a French statesman and legal expert who was second consul with Napoleon Bonaparte and served as his legal adviser on all juridical matters. He was instrumental in formulating the Napoleonic Code, or Civil Code of 1804 and subsequent codes) While this naturalism alone would suffice to separate this revolutionary legislation from the eternal law, many articles in the Napoleonic Code directly opposed Jesus Christ and His Church. Thus, this Caesarist code established “civil marriage” and allowed divorce. It attacked family property, inheritance laws and the right to make one’s will. It refused to recognize religious orders and denied the Church’s right to acquire and own property freely. It maintained the revolutionary suppression of guilds and the freedom of association. It affirmed the false principle of civil and political equality of all citizens. The family was dealt yet another death blow by insisting on the false principle that prescribes the equal sharing of inheritance. This revolutionary code became the legal model that all modern States would adopt. It effectively banned Christ the King from the governments and laws that govern peoples. Hence one can say, with Antoine Blanc de Saint-Bonnet (he was a highly esteemed French legitimist, counterrevolutionary and ultramontane thinker whose ideas were a precursor to modern sociology), that “the empire was the crowning achievement of liberalism, or, in other words, the installation of Caesarism: the perfect substitution of God with man, of the Church with the State that ever took place outside the Roman Empire, or, if you prefer, the Ottoman Empire.” Under such conditions, the gates are open to socialism and communism because liberalism inevitably leads there. Communism does not take over because liberalism is a reaction that provokes its own suppression, as some haphazard theories of sociologists claim. Its essence and characteristics take society to communism. Liberalism spawns atheism through contempt for the Faith and the unbridled freedom granted to religious and social errors. It then profoundly undermines property by its way of treating the rights of the nobility, expropriating Church property, arbitrarily disposing of family inheritance, consenting to economic abuses and favoring the exploitation of man by man. Finally, liberalism installs itself in states with the brutal force of the masses, handing over authority bound hands and feet to universal suffrage. Thus, Blanc de Saint-Bonnet concludes, “communism is based on atheism, the appropriation of capital, and the force employed by the masses.” (Blanc de Saint-Bonnet, in La Legitimité) Indeed, the focal point of this entire revolutionary effort is the radical denial of the Divine Savior’s Social Kingship. “We do not want Him to reign over us!” “We have no king but Caesar!” Accordingly, Cardinal Pie states that “the dominant error, the capital crime of this century, is the pretense of extracting society from the government and law of God… Atheism in law and institutions is the principle that serves as the foundation of the entire modern social order. Whether disguised under [different] names,..the principle of freeing human society from religious direction remains at the bottom of things; it is the essence of what is called the new times.” (Louis-Edouard Cardinal Pie, Oeuvres, tome 7)" fragment, originally published in the October 1952 issue of Catolicismo

Modern law clashes with Social Kingship of Jesus Christ Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira "When Our Lord says that His kingdom is not of this world, the great ultramontane Cardinal Pie clarifies. (Cardinal Louis-Édouard-François-Desiré Pie (1815-1880), was the French bishop of Poitiers. He was known for his outspoken ultramontanism and defense of the social reign of Christ the King) He means that it does not come from this world but from heaven and thus cannot be snatched away by any human power. His kingdom is not like those on earth that are limited and subject to the vicissitudes of the things of this world. Thus, the expression “of this world” is linked to the origin of the Divine Kingship and does not mean in any way that Jesus Christ denies His Sovereignty or the character of a social kingdom. If His kingdom were limited to a strictly spiritual sphere or the interior life of souls, Our Lord would have blatantly contradicted Himself when, among other references, He clearly states that “all power is given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18). As Vladimir Soloviev (Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov (1853—1900) was a Russian philosopher, theologian, poet, pamphleteer, and literary critic. He favored the return of the Russian Orthodox Church to Rome) affirms, “If [Our Lord’s] words about the coin had robbed Caesar of his divinity, this new statement robs him of his absolute power. If Caesar wishes to reign over the earth, he cannot do so of his own will: he must do so as a delegate of the One to whom all power was given on earth.” One main characteristic of the revolutionary spirit is precisely the intention to divide the religious and civil life of peoples. The express will of God is not what prevails in legislation, which should come from the dictates of right reason promulgated by legitimate authority for the sake of the common good. Instead, law comes from the expression of the majority or fully sovereign general will. The common good’s efficient cause is not found outside and above man but in the free will of individuals. Thus, public authority draws its primary origin from the multitude. Leo XIII claims this leads to the erroneous notion that “just as every man’s individual reason is his only rule of life, so the collective reason of the community should be the supreme guide in the management of all public affairs. Hence the doctrine of the supremacy of the greater number, and that all right and all duty reside in the majority.” (Leo XIII, Encyclical Libertas, June 20, 1888) Thus, modern society “refuses any bond of union between man and civil society, on the one hand, and God the Creator and consequently the supreme Law-giver, on the other.” (Idem) Before the eighteenth century and the French Revolution, all countries had political and social institutions based on the force of Christian customs. Afterward, an artificial and revolutionary “new system of law” was despotically implanted all over the world. These pre-modern institutions were not created by assemblies elected by the fraudulent sovereignty of the people. As Joseph de Maistre says, “the civil constitution of peoples is never the result of deliberation.” A simple act of the will should not dictate the fundamental law that will govern a nation, but rather the guiding principle of law should be precepts of right reason that cannot be ignored and much less run contrary to the Divine command. Human laws must flow from the eternal law. According to Leo XII, if the law establishing what must be done and excluded is left to the discretion of eventual majorities or the largest crowd, this will pave the way for leading a people to tyranny. Thus, liberalism prepared the modern world for the chains that bind it to the totalitarian Leviathan. It did this by shifting law from its natural source (which is the will of God expressed by natural law and Revelation, of which the Church is the infallible guardian and interpreter) to political sectarians who took over legislative bodies through the alchemy of universal suffrage and by dint of political coups.

Modern law clashes with Social Kingship of Jesus Christ Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira "When Our Lord says that His kingdom is not of this world, the great ultramontane Cardinal Pie clarifies. (Cardinal Louis-Édouard-François-Desiré Pie (1815-1880), was the French bishop of Poitiers. He was known for his outspoken ultramontanism and defense of the social reign of Christ the King) He means that it does not come from this world but from heaven and thus cannot be snatched away by any human power. His kingdom is not like those on earth that are limited and subject to the vicissitudes of the things of this world. Thus, the expression “of this world” is linked to the origin of the Divine Kingship and does not mean in any way that Jesus Christ denies His Sovereignty or the character of a social kingdom. If His kingdom were limited to a strictly spiritual sphere or the interior life of souls, Our Lord would have blatantly contradicted Himself when, among other references, He clearly states that “all power is given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18). As Vladimir Soloviev (Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov (1853—1900) was a Russian philosopher, theologian, poet, pamphleteer, and literary critic. He favored the return of the Russian Orthodox Church to Rome) affirms, “If [Our Lord’s] words about the coin had robbed Caesar of his divinity, this new statement robs him of his absolute power. If Caesar wishes to reign over the earth, he cannot do so of his own will: he must do so as a delegate of the One to whom all power was given on earth.” One main characteristic of the revolutionary spirit is precisely the intention to divide the religious and civil life of peoples. The express will of God is not what prevails in legislation, which should come from the dictates of right reason promulgated by legitimate authority for the sake of the common good. Instead, law comes from the expression of the majority or fully sovereign general will. The common good’s efficient cause is not found outside and above man but in the free will of individuals. Thus, public authority draws its primary origin from the multitude. Leo XIII claims this leads to the erroneous notion that “just as every man’s individual reason is his only rule of life, so the collective reason of the community should be the supreme guide in the management of all public affairs. Hence the doctrine of the supremacy of the greater number, and that all right and all duty reside in the majority.” (Leo XIII, Encyclical Libertas, June 20, 1888) Thus, modern society “refuses any bond of union between man and civil society, on the one hand, and God the Creator and consequently the supreme Law-giver, on the other.” (Idem) Before the eighteenth century and the French Revolution, all countries had political and social institutions based on the force of Christian customs. Afterward, an artificial and revolutionary “new system of law” was despotically implanted all over the world. These pre-modern institutions were not created by assemblies elected by the fraudulent sovereignty of the people. As Joseph de Maistre says, “the civil constitution of peoples is never the result of deliberation.” A simple act of the will should not dictate the fundamental law that will govern a nation, but rather the guiding principle of law should be precepts of right reason that cannot be ignored and much less run contrary to the Divine command. Human laws must flow from the eternal law. According to Leo XII, if the law establishing what must be done and excluded is left to the discretion of eventual majorities or the largest crowd, this will pave the way for leading a people to tyranny. Thus, liberalism prepared the modern world for the chains that bind it to the totalitarian Leviathan. It did this by shifting law from its natural source (which is the will of God expressed by natural law and Revelation, of which the Church is the infallible guardian and interpreter) to political sectarians who took over legislative bodies through the alchemy of universal suffrage and by dint of political coups.

Democracy Excerpt from Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange’s Preface to Aquinas’s De Regno Democracy is an imperfect regime, as a regime in ratione regiminis, as a result of the lack of unity and continuity in the direction of interior and exterior affairs. Also this regime should only be for the perfect already capable of directing themselves—those virtuous and competent enough to pronounce as is fitting upon the very complicated problems on which the life of a great people depends. But it is always true to say as Saint Thomas noted that these virtuous and competent men are extremely rare; and democracy, supposing such perfection among subjects, cannot give it to them. From this point of view, democracy is a bit in politics what quietism is in spirituality; it supposes man has arrived, at the age or the state of perfection, even though he still may be a child. In treating him as a perfect person, democracy does not give him what is required to become one. Since true virtue united to true competence is a rare thing among men, since the majority among them are incapable of governing and they have a need of being led, the regime which is the best for them is the one which can make up for their imperfection. This regimen perfectum in ratione regiminis, by reason of unity, continuity, and efficacy of direction towards a single end which is difficult to achieve is monarchy. Above all a tempered monarchy which is always attentive to the different forms of national activity. It is better than democracy or than the feudal regime. Monarchy assures the interior and exterior peace of a great nation, and permits her to long endure. Such is the doctrine of Saint Thomas, as the present work shows. The importance of these ideas will be apparent to all who understand that the interior and exterior peace of a people is one of the principle conditions of their moral and religious life. It is not an indifferent thing; there is truth in the political order as in the moral order and in the metaphysical order. If one cannot always demonstrate it with evidence, it is important to come as close as possible to it. The durable union of intelligences and wills is only achievable, in effect, in truth, without which there may well be—the law of the multitude—a collection of egoisms always ready to demand a liberty which degenerates into license. Without this union of intelligences and wills, justice and the common good, which are the principle and the end of the social order, cannot exist.