Modernism Rhymes With Relativism and Atheism

(Vatican) On September 8, 1907, the now canonized Pope Pius X published the Encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis about Modernism. It is valuable, because this encyclical, despite  its age is re-read, because it treats with intellectual currents that are effective today.  Following are excerpts from several chapters.

The Modernist as Reformer

38) It remains for Us now to say a few words about the Modernist as reformer. From all that has preceded, some idea may be gained of the reforming mania which possesses them: in all Catholicism there is absolutely nothing on which it does not fasten. Reform of philosophy, especially in the seminaries: the scholastic philosophy is to be relegated to the history of philosophy among obsolete systems, and the young men are to be taught modern philosophy which alone is true and suited to the times in which we live. Reform of theology; rational theology is to have modern philosophy for its foundation, and positive theology is to be founded on the history of dogma. As for history, it must be for the future written and taught only according to their modern methods and principles. Dogmas and their evolution are to be harmonised with science and history. In the Catechism no dogmas are to be inserted except those that have been duly reformed and are within the capacity of the people. Regarding worship, the number of external devotions is to be reduced, or at least steps must be taken to prevent their further increase, though, indeed, some of the admirers of symbolism are disposed to be more indulgent on this head. Ecclesiastical government requires to be reformed in all its branches, but especially in its disciplinary and dogmatic parts. Its spirit with the public conscience, which is not wholly for democracy; a share in ecclesiastical government should therefore be given to the lower ranks of the clergy, and even to the laity, and authority should be decentralised. The Roman Congregations, and especially the index and the Holy Office, are to be reformed. The ecclesiastical authority must change its line of conduct in the social and political world; while keeping outside political and social organization, it must adapt itself to those which exist in order to penetrate them with its spirit. With regard to morals, they adopt the principle of the Americanists, that the active virtues are more important than the passive, both in the estimation in which they must be held and in the exercise of them. The clergy are asked to return to their ancient lowliness and poverty, and in their ideas and action to be guided by the principles of Modernism; and there are some who, echoing the teaching of their Protestant masters, would like the suppression of ecclesiastical celibacy. What is there left in the Church which is not to be reformed according to their principles?

Msgr. Umberto Begnigni and the Anti-Modernist Battle of the Sodalitium Pianum

(Rome) 80 years ago,  in  grand isolation, Monsignor Umberto Benigni (1862-1934) died.  He was one of the spokesmen of  Catholic anti-Modernism under Pope Saint Pius X (1903-1914) in Rome.  To recall  the Church in this form is apparently increasingly important to remember in times like ours, which is characterized, no doubt, with a new explosion of those tendencies and fallacies that  Umberto Benigni fought a hundred years ago.

In the hope that there will soon be a biography as detailed  as possible which  throws light on these Roman prelates, a few biographical notes should be made in the meantime be made about this rare type of the Catholic clergy. A priest who has been both criticized by the non-Catholic historians, as well as by Catholic historians, in fact, he is but little known.

On the occasion of the beatification (1951) and then the canonization (1954) of Pope Pius X by  Pope Pius XII. there was a particular concern, criticism of the former Patriarch of Venice was noisy, especially  in his fight against Modernism. The Sacred Congregation of Rites, from  which emerged the 1969  Congregation for the Causes of Saints,, the Franciscan Ferdinando Antonelli (1896-1993), who was later to become  Cardinal,  would reveal  the actions of Pius X. as repressive and especially those generated by  Msgr. Umberto Benigni and his Sodalitium Pianum.  The Sodalitium was a Catholic association for the support of the Holy See in the fight against Modernism in theology, politics and society.  Father Antonelli''s study, as Disquisitio  became known, was in the volumes of the positions published for the canonization of Pius X.. This is where  the essential elements of the life and work of Monsignor Benigni can be found.

Journalistic Representatives of Catholic Social Teaching

Umberto Benigni was born on 30 Born March 1862 in Perugia, central Italy near Assisi. At that time, Bishop Gioacchino Pecci, was bishop of the city, in 1878 he was elected Pope as Leo XIII. The future pope had always had such a great appreciation for the priest from his former episcopal city, that he made ​​him his secretary after his ordination in (1884)  at the age of only 22 years. Don Benigni's  a truly diverse and extraordinary personality as was already evident in his youth. He developed numerous activities  in his hometown.  In 1892 he founded the first Catholic weekly newspaper of Sociology. This " Rassegna sociale "(Social Survey), later it was renamed the Biblioteca perodica, geared to the Magisterium of the Popes from the syllabus up to Rerum Novarum . In 1893 he was on the editorial board of the Catholic newspaper " Eco d'Italia "(Echo of Italy) in Genoa.

"Papist" and "Reactionary"

After that he went to Rome at the request of Leo XIII. After a period of studies and research in Germany (the polyglot Benigni followed the press from half of Europe), he graduated to  the Vatican Library graduated, he was in 1901 in the  editor of the " Voce della Verità "(Voice of Truth ) in the capital of Catholicism, one of the main newspapers, which was decried among opponents as "papist" and "reactionary."

From 1902 to 1907 he published a historical, academic journal called "Miscellanea di Storia ecclesiastica" (Human Interest from Church History). From 1906 he was appointed Under-Secretary of the Secretary, and elevated Cardinal in 1907 on the recommendation of Curial Archbishop Pietro Gasparri, the Secretary of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs. From 1914 to 1930 he was Cardinal Secretary of State and the predecessor in this office by Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, later Pope Pius XII.

Corrispondenza Romana versus Civiltà Cattolica

1907, in the year of the decree Lamentabili , the first time the term modernism came into use, as well as was the case in the encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis, Msgr Benigni called a press agency to life under the name Romana Corrispondenza.  According to Father Antonelli it encompassed   the new Catholic news agency "in the world by various correspondents and friends  of Benigni,  messages were collected to observe up close the ideological, political and social movements that might interest the Church and Its activities."  Today, the news agency is mistaken for a secret society, which the Sodalitium never was.  The Corrispondenza Romana acted in public. It saw itself primarily as a counterpart to the Roman Jesuit journal Civiltà Cattolica , whose modernist sympathies were fought.

Teaching as Church Historian

In addition to his tireless efforts as a journalist, Msgr Benigni also had other passions, which were invariably in the service of truth and the Church. These included his teaching and historical-theological research. In addition to his ceaseless struggle against the enemies of the Church, even those who claimed to be false friends, Msgr Benigni unfolded a long study in Church History at various Roman universities, thus at the Urban in Saint Apollinare , at the Pontifical Roman Seminary and the Accademia dei Nobili Ecclesiastici (the Diplomatic Academy of the Holy See).

Seven Volume "Social History of the Church"

His past publications are of great value. For example, his outstanding Storia sociale della Chiesa (Social History of the Church) in seven large volumes (the first appeared in 1907, the last in 1933 a year before his death). It is a systematic work in the style of two other Church historians, the History of the Popes by Ludwig von Pastor (1854-1928) and the Manual of Universal Church History by Joseph Cardinal Hergenrother (1824-1890), the successor of Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, Office of the Cardinal Proto Deacon. Monsignor Benigni's work remained unfinished upon his death. However, the present seven volumes show an excellent informed scientist with the ability to offer an original and stimulating overall view. The modern reader may occasionally be astonished at his language, perhaps even find it strange, sometimes to violent polemics as well for biting humor. A language that is due to the cultural struggle in which he was active during his life on the front line.

Sodalitium Pianum, Observation of Modernists and Their Writings

The activity, however,  brought him as many enemies outside, but also within the Church, connected with the Sodalitium Pianum. The Sodalitium Pianum , named after Saint Pope Pius V, was born in 1909 and was finally dissolved in 1921 under Pope Benedict XV. It was founded "to be a foremost religious  defense against internal enemies (modernism, etc.)" ... "with the full consent, not to say of Pius X himself" in the archives of the Vatican, there are numerous documents for the approval and goodwill of the Sodalitium Pianum by St. Pius X and Cardinal De Lai Gaetano (1853-1928) who led the Holy Consistorial (now the Congregation for Bishops ). Pius X gave to Msgr Benigni every year from his personal box 1,000 lire for his actions and his  public engagement.

The Sodalitium Pianum was initially based at the Secretariat of State, where Msgr Benigni served as Under Secretary. A canonical recognition did not happen by the action of the then Cardinal Secretary of State for reasons of expediency, however, this is why Monsignor Benigni   left off from the Secretariat of State and established in 1911 and gave up his post as Under Secretary. His successor in that office was the future Pope Pius XII., Eugenio Pacelli. Pope Pius X created for Benigni  especially on this occasion the title and rank of eighth  acting Apostolic protonotary , although traditionally it was only seven. He was indeed blocked for a bishop, but Msgr Benigni won with apparent papal benevolence. Pope Francis abolished the title of Apostolic Protonotary  in January 2014.

The Sodalitium would enter according to the original request of Msgr Benigni, a kind secular institute in the service of the Pope and the Holy See to enter into  the fight against the disastrous influence of Modernism and of Freemasonry on society and culture. Above all, it was the endeavor of Msgr Benigni, to repel the influence of these sects within the Catholic Church.  The Sodalitium consisted of a Council in Rome, headed by Monsignor Benigni and groups connected him   ( Peter Conferences ) and priests. In its little more than ten years of existence, the  Sodalitium counted never more than one hundred people, including priests and lay people in the various countries of Europe.

Benigni, Object of Hatred for Modernists Within and Outside the Church

Nevertheless, this tiny association was the most implacable  enemy of the Modernists, such as the French priest and theologian Alfred Loisy (1857-1940), who was excommunicated in 1908 because of his refusal to submit to the Church's teaching,  and died as a pantheist. Or the Italian priest and theologian Romolo Murri (1870-1944), who entered as a hitherto Catholic Leftists, was  for reconciling Catholic Faith and Communism. Because of his refusal to submit to the Church's teaching, he was suspended in 1907 and in 1909 excommunicated when he got himself elected to the Italian Parliament and joined the radical Left. After the First World War, he became a fascist, but was an anti-Fascist when the fascist regime regulated the relationship between the Church and State with the Lateran Treaty in 1929. 

More resistance than from the open Modernists was what   Monsignor Benigni learned that within the Church were the semi-modernists, who had even risen inside to the level of  Cardinal. With the support of St. Pius X and the Cardinals De Lai, the Cardinal Secretary of State and then Prefect of the Holy Office Raphael Merry del Val, the Dutch Redemptorist Wilhelmus Marinus van Rossum and others, however, he was able to hold a few years. To be exact, until the death of Pius X in 1914,  the newly elected Pope Benedict XV. dissolved the association on the outbreak of the First World War. However, the following year saw the need for its restoration. 1921 was the final dissolution because of "changed circumstances".

Attempt to Prevent the Canonization of Pius X.

Pope Pius XII had never known  Msgr Benigni personally, was influenced by the polyphonic choir, who wanted to prevent the canonization of Pius X, in particular by Msgr Benigni was drawn as the dark shadows spread over his pontificate in the blackest colors, but not led astray.  There were all the numerous crypto-Modernists that could or would not come into the open until several years later, who were against the canonization, but there even high prelates who considered this step an "inopportune moment."  As the reigning Pope would not tolerate direct attacks against Pius X, his opponents fired upon  Monsignor Benigni, which was outlined as the worst obscurantist and anti-Semite, to thwart the elevation to the altars. It seems inconceivable that a canonization of Pope Giuseppe Sarto had taken place  in the period 1958 to 1978. [He was beatified in 1951 and canonized in 1954.]

"The Roman Catholic is Entirely Counter-Revolutionary"

The attitude and objectives of the Sodalitium Pianum is in his program summarized from 1911 contains 18 articles. In Article One it states:

"We are integral Roman Catholics. As the word readily implies, accept the Roman Catholic integral teaching and the order of the Holy Roman Catholic Church and the directives of the Holy See and all resulting legal consequences fully for the individual and society. He is papal, clerical, anti-modernist, anti-Liberal, anti-sectarian. It is therefore entirely counter-revolutionary because he is not only an enemy of the Jacobin Revolution and sectarian radicalism, but also the religious and social Liberalism. "

The news agency that  was founded several years ago, Corrispondenza Romana by historian Roberto de Mattei, has no direct connection with the establishment of Msgr Benigni. The use of the same name indicates, however, that the new Corrispondenza Romana has the defense of the Catholic faith and the Catholic Church and the fight against Modernism as its goal.

Text: Corrispondenza Romana / Giuseppe Nardi
image: Corrispondenza Romana

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

Link to Katholisches...

AMGD

From the “Egomenical” Council to the Homosexualization of the Church -- Ariel Levi di Gualdos

 (Rome) He is young and combative, his life was a struggle between Judaism and Christianity, he decided for Jesus Christ and became a Catholic priest. The talk is of Ariel Gualdo di Stefano Levi, born in 1963. He is a student of the Jesuit Peter Gumpel, a priest of the Diocese of Rome and has the fire of a convert. He is the author of several books and editor of the theological journal series Fides Quaerens Intelletcum. In 2007 Erbe Amare, il secolo del sionismo (Bitter Herbs: The Zionist Century) appeared, 2009 Nada te turbe, 2011 E Satana si fece Trino relativismo, individualismo, disobbedienza. Analisi sulla Chiesa del terzo millenio (And the devil makes ​​himself triune. Relativism, individualism, disobedience: An Analysis of the Church of the third millennium).

The Priest and Jewish convert's writings to provoke

Each of his works is like a cold shower and a heated provocation at the same time. It is this emotional roller coaster Levi di Gualdo wants to achieve in his readers. A tepid middle ground does not exist for him. The most recent book, The Devil Made Himself Triune is a razor-sharp polemic from the priest and theologian, as it is explained in the subtitle. In order to tap the full meaning of the title, it is necessary to resort to the Church Fathers. St. Jerome and St. Augustine described the devil as a monkey god. A monkey aping God to turn things upside down and create a parallel perception to reality.

The book is divided into three parts. The first part is dedicated to the free loyalty and obedience to the Church. The Second Vatican Council was “deformed by the post-conciliar theologians into a egomaniacal Council" and abused as an instrument of apostasy and rebellion within the Church. The neologism of "ecumenical" and "egomaniacal" gives you an idea of ​​Levi di Gualdos militancy.

An Absolutist Mind at all Times is Characteristic of Apostates

Substantiated without circumlocution and with plenty of buttressing, the author assails the progressives in the Church who pretend to be an army of priest and theologian rebels, who are always have their mouths open and are ready at any time to demand "more collegiality and democracy" but to have built true dictatorships in the church at the same time.  "The hegemonic and absolutist mind is not something typically conservative, but rather of the apostates of all time, who gave rise to the worst forms of the suppression of freedom of thought and made the dominant opinion into a forced unity.”

This small army of dilapidated priests in jeans and tie theologians, who have neared to the people of the church, have initiated forms of clericalism, as they had never been before. The consequences were that "after decades of theological and liturgical scurrility, oddities, the churches of the West are half empty, and the crisis of credibility weighs like an executioner's ax on the clergy." The presumption of this modern clericalism was to reduce to the author, God, to an object, which one could impose one's will. "This fact leads to the denial of God as a God who is no longer recognized as the Lord of life and history.”

Bultmann to Ravasi - Is the condemnation of Modernism by Pius X no longer valid?

As an example, the author draws the chapter "From Bultmann to Gianfranco Ravasi," the world of ideas published by Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture an "autopsy". Here Levi di Gualdo raises the question of whether the contents of the Encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis, with Pope St. Pius X. Modernism condemning it as a synthesis of all heresies would still be valid today. The question is of crucial importance, since many of the Pius X theses condemned today the basis of numerous published theological writings expected to be learned in the theological faculties and seminaries. "The question that arises is: This happens because of the changing historical circumstances that the validity of those condemnations is extinguished, or is it because the soldiers have risen from the belly of the Trojan horse and now frolic inside the walls?”

Levi di Gualdo maintains that Cardinal Ravasi illustrated in the preface to the first, the Italian edition of the first volume of the work, "Jesus of Nazareth" by Pope Benedict XVI. that the use of “real” instead of “historic” is able to contradict what the Pope says in the book. The author sees this as "the usual word game” used by Bultmann and the thesis of the reality of the myth. "A thesis in the preface to the book of Benedict XVI. hurled like a ripe tomato against a white wall. “

Psychological Homosexualization the Church an Epidemic Evil

The second chapter of the book is devoted to the psychological homosexualization the Church, which accounts for the author and held to be far more serious than the pedophilia scandal. In Church history it was made an unprecedented phenomenon in the last decades. Homosexuals have created an internal Church lobby, which they operate with mafia-like methods. This lobby has created a form of clerical Pornokratie and has a negative effect on the life and institutions of the Church. "The request from the Holy See for years has forcefully imposed, not to ordain candidates with open or latent homosexual tendencies, that is simply ignored by many dioceses in which they act contrary to Roman directives. You can not have peace of mind, when severely limited to strict public statements, while a homosexual priest then increases his, in the same proportion as the bishops increase who march parallel to the ideological advance of homosexualization, proceeding in concert with a latent homosexual psychology. Or to put it more bluntly: some seminarians in the seminaries formed "religious brotherhoods” during in the 70s and 80s are today bishops, and no sooner had it, than they have to be first surrounded with like-minded subjects who systematically are placed in all key positions in the diocese, including seminaries where they mutually protect each other and reproduce.”

Rome must remove Homo-bishops - to Crush the Snake's Head

Ariel Levi di Gualdo assesses the decision "to be moved to concrete action: removal of the bishops from their diocese who promote and propagate homosexuals to the sanctuary.” It means that the Church “is to be cleaned of this dangerous homosexual decadent disease," says the Roman priest. "In various dioceses in which homosexuality has come to power, today the heterosexual candidates are excluded from the ordination. If they are already priests, they are discriminated against and discharged by a homosexual lobby. Appeals and recommendations at this point are no longer sufficient, readiness must be to cut the snake off at the head.” The author himself doesn’t lack a sense of humor in this subject. “In view of a blatant case", but this by no means was even a single case where in a diocese "in the last 20 years, eight of ten ordained priests" had “evident operational errors”, then “it suddenly struck me," and I said to the bishop, "he would have rather been consecrated as the prioress of the Discalced Carmelite nuns, as the Reverend Mother was the last man in the clergy of his diocese.”

The third chapter is devoted to the freedom of free choice of the people for good or evil, will be discussed soon.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Fides et Forma
Translation: Tancred

The Exclusion -- The jus exclusivae

Franz Joseph I., Austrian Emperor by God’s Grace, hindered a pro-French Pope in 1903.  The tool for that is a right of veto.

Mariano Rampolla del Tindaro: With the Insignia
of honors and Grand Cross of the Bailli of the Maltese Order 

Tempora mutantur: at the conclave 110 years ago the Austrian Empire still had a weighty word, because a prompt right of veto followed.

Pope Leo XIII closed his eyes at last on the 20th of July on 1903.  Then the choice of a new Pope in the course of a conclave was the order of the day.  This began on the 31st of July.

64 Voting Cardinals

The 64 eligible cardinals were:  39 Italians, seven Frenchmen, five Spaniards, including even five from Austria-Hungary, three from Germany.  There was one each from Portugal, Belgium, England, the USA and Australia.  In Rome there were 62, because Cardinal Patrick Maran from Sydney couldn’t be there at the appointed time.  For Pietro Michelangenlo Celesia, Archbishop of Palermo,  it wasn’t possible to come for reasons of sickness.

The five Princes of the Church from the Double-Monarchy were Kolos Ferenc Vaszary (Gran Esztergom), Leo Freiherr Skrbensky (Prague), Jan Puzyna (Cracow), Johannes Katschathaler, as the Archbishop of Salzburg Primate of the Germans, and last Anton Grscha, Archbishop of Vienna.

Course of the Election

For a valid election a requirement of two thirds majority (of those present) accounting for 42.  On the 1st of Augustin at 10 o’clock in the morning was the first vote.  As expected, Cardinal Rampola reaped the most votes (24), in the second round he pulled 29 votes after that.

Now the opponents of Rampolla --  who were in the first line of Austria-Hungary -- sounded the alarm, because Rampolla was a red cape for the Double-Monarchy.  Under his aegis the Holy See would turn away from the Archcatholic House of Habsburg and to the French Republic, to which the latter was connected to Czarist Russia,  which was at that time oppressing Catholic Poland.

The ius exclusivae

It was time for Vienna to play its trump, the jus exclusivae, namely the right of certain Catholic Princes, to prevent a non-desirable Papal claimant.  The exclusion, by which the ius exclusive shortly became known by,  belonged  to, besides the Emperor of Austria, the King of Spain as well as the French government as the successor of the King of France and Navarre.

It is false to say as it is introduced  hither and yon (see Google) that Franz Joseph asserted his privilege  (which was fundamentally also due to the Magyars for their fight as athletes of Christ against the Turks) in his quality as King of Hungary.  Were this so, then the Monarch would have certainly, as the Prince Primate of Hungary, therefore the Archbishop of Estergom, as the one who delivered the veto.

Cardinal Rampolla can not be chosen

In this consideration Franz Josef I. had assigned Cardinal Puzyna a so-called secretum to carry to Rome , which contained the written veto to be cast against Rampolla. Puzyna cast the veto just before the third session (2nd August), which read:

“Called by the highest commission of this office, I consider it my honor, to convey to the Dean of the Holy College in an official way and let it be conveyed the following:  His Apostolic Majesty the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary intend, to serve his ancient right and privilege, namely to assert a veto against the selection of His Eminence of the Cardinal Lords, Mariano Rampola del Tinder."

Guiseppe Sarto Becomes Pius X

With that Rampolla was out of the running, two days later, Guiseppe Sarto, the Patriarch of Venice, was elected as the new Supreme Head of the Church.  He took the name Pius X., Austro-Hungary had asserted itself.  Once more the old saying was valid: AEIOU -- Alles Erdreich is Oestereich untertan.

Indeed, Pius X. shortly released the Constitution Commissum Nobis on the 20th of January, 1904.  The content was a cold shower for Vienna, because from then on, any worldly power which asserts for consideration the jus exclusivae is threatened with excommunication latae sententiae.  With that the ancient privilege declared by Franz Joseph would be in the past.

This article referenced the following:

Erich Körner Lakatos:
Palais des Beaux Arts? Normannen in der Karibik?
Vierzig historische Nischen
Edition Octopust, 2012, 369 Seiten, 17,80 Euro
Münster: Verl.-Haus Monsenstein und Vannerda
978-3-86991-601-9

Link to kreuz.net….

George Weigel Defends Americanism: Again.

Once again George Weigel proposes something for the reasonable consideration of Roman Catholics in the USA. He banks on the fact that most Americans are unaware of what was at stake when the Masonic Garibaldi finally triumphed over the Papal forces to unify Italy in that fateful year of 1870, while the Prussians trounced the French further north, and he does not fail to disappoint in that he adds more confusion than clarity in the bargain while running rough shod over Church teaching in the bargain. In his latest article for the National Review he says, after piling some well deserved abuse on the Masonic republics that have ruled Italy since 1870, that the Church somehow benefited from the loss of its temporal power. He even gets a few licks in on the old Soviet Union, continuing to try to convince us that Communism was overcome and that John Paul II had something to do with it. Perhaps what he's selling is favored with a few in the modern Papacy, but his verbiage would have been regarded unfavorably by sensible churchmen before 1965.

Weigel is aware of these things, but he explains sentences like this away by an appeal to a historical argument, suggesting a decided Modernist cant to his daring do.

76. The abolition of the temporal power of which the Apostolic See is possessed would contribute in the greatest degree to the liberty and prosperity of the Church. —Allocutions "Quibus quantisque," April 20, 1849, "Si semper antea," May 20, 1850. (Condemned as error).

He even makes a citation of good old Evelyn Waugh writing in his Sword of Honor, citing the incomparable Norman, Guy Crouchback:

News of the King’s flight came on the day the brigade landed at Salerno. It brought Guy some momentary exhilaration.

“That looks like the end of the Piedmontese usurpation,” he said to his father. “What a mistake the Lateran Treaty was. It seemed masterly at the time — how long? Fifteen years ago? What are 15 years in the history of Rome? How much better it would have been if the Popes had sat it out and then emerged, saying, ‘What was all that? Risorgimento? Garibaldi? Cavour? The House of Savoy? Mussolini? Just some hooligans from out of town causing a disturbance. Come to think of it, wasn’t there a poor boy whom they called King of Rome?’ That’s what the Pope ought to be saying today.”

Mr. Crouchback regarded his son sadly. “My dear boy,” he said, “you’re really talking the most terrible nonsense, you know. That isn’t what the Church is like. It isn’t what she’s for.”

It's interesting reading, but is that really what Evelyn Waugh had in mind to reconcile the Papacy's concordat with Italy in 1933? He leaves this unanswered and proceeds on to defend the erroneous notion that the Papacy need not have had its temporal power, and that this temporal power was an impediment.

George Weigel is in love with the State, but like Frederick II of Prussia, he knows the importance of religion to the run of the mill out there, and he writes for them, he influences them in terms they appreciate and understand, even if he leads them down the wrong path in the end.

You can have the Church as the institution She claims to be, with the rules she's always had, or you can deny that she has those rights ascribed to her in the Syllabus of Errors, but you can't have it both ways. If you're not a Catholic of all times, you're not really a Catholic at all, you're just an apologist for Modernism and Freemasonry, which is what Weigel has always been. No friend of the Church is he.

Next thing you know, old George Weigel will be saying that the Church was wrong about there being no separation of Church and State, cheeky devil.

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