1. You are suffocating religion

RELIGION is a word that applies generally to people's relationship with their gods. But the true religion is that whereby the one, true, living God is gradually united with the whole of mankind in accordance with that incomparable and supernatural body of dogmas, sacraments, rites, laws, and traditions, which are pleasing to God because they were first revealed, imposed, requested, instituted or accepted – since the beginning and in their fullness – by His Son Jesus Christ, Our Lord and King. Such are our faith, such are our prayers and our sacraments, such are our laws, the commandments of both God and the Church. Such is our religion, the principle and foundation, the means and the end of our whole life.

O admirabile commercium ! Yes, wonderful indeed is this interrelationship between divinity and humanity, which begins on this earth and reaches its fullness in eternal life. Our communion with the Godhead has three distinct relationships, corresponding to the temporal missions of the three divine Persons, in their Trinitarian processions. There is the cult of adoration to God our Creator and Father, a worship that is exclusive and entire. There is the attachment of faith and love to the Word, the Son of God made man, Our Lord and Saviour. There is the union of the whole Church, the people of God, with the Holy Spirit, the source of all graces and virtues and the means whereby we are divinised and introduced into the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity.

How could the “ cult of man ” – one blushes even to write such a horror ! – not succeed in disturbing, perverting and eventually annihilating all this captivating and wonderful piety and devotion ? Re-read what You yourself have written and tell me: What remains of divine religion after this ?

“ The fundamental dimension capable of revolutionising the systems that provide the structure for all mankind and of freeing human existence, both individual and collective, from the threats hanging over it, is man, man in his wholeness, man whose life partakes of both material and spiritual values. Respect for man's inalienable rights is at the basis of everything.

“ This man is unique, complete and indivisible. In the cultural domain, man is always the primary factor: man is the primordial and fundamental factor of culture... In thinking of all cultures, I wish to say here in Paris, at the seat of UNESCO, with respect and admiration, Behold the man ! (what blasphemy ! cf. John 19.5).

“ Man, in the visible world, is the unique ontic subject (sic) of culture, and he is also its unique object and term. Culture is that whereby man, as man, becomes more human and attains to a higher state of being... Man, and man alone, expresses himself in culture and therein finds his own equilibrium. ” (Speech addressed to UNESCO)

It is clear that in this speech, delivered before an international audience of freemasons of UNESCO, who would be most pleased to hear you say it, culture for you is the religion of Man, and it is the exact replica of the religion of our God. Culture, in fact, is a whole body of doctrine, artistic and festive expression, custom and tradition, whereby man expresses himself in the assembly of men for the greater glory of Man. “ Man does not live by bread alone ”, you ventured to say in imitation of the words of Jesus in the wilderness (Mt. 4.4), “ but also by culture ”. It is the spirit of blasphemy within you that makes you replace the words “ every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God ” with the word “ culture ”. In your integral humanism, it is evident that “ religion ” is reduced to its sole function as an ancillary to culture !

You have not yet dared to adopt that solemn proclamation of the Cult of Man, made by your predecessor and father, Paul VI, in St. Peter's Square on December 7, 1965 at the close of the Council – a proclamation which he repeated in the same solemn terms at Fatima on May 13, 1967: “ Men be men ! ” To say such words in either place was truly an act of profanation. But on the octave day of your furtive pilgrimage to Fatima, May 20, 1982, you adopted these same blasphemies in a letter you wrote to your worthy secretary of State, Cardinal Casaroli, regarding the foundation of some synagogue of Satan called the Pontifical Council for Culture, or in other words, for the Cult of Man. This cult of man is obviously of more interest to you than are the “ little devotions ” requested of her children by Our Lady of Fatima for their eternal good !

Returning to your UNESCO speech, you explained that culture must become faith and that faith must become culture. For humanism, the new humanism, is Christianity, since Christianity is the fullness of humanism. Let us read this synthesis of humanism and Christianity which, according to you, is the great human task of our times:

“ As the privileged recipient of the rich inheritance of the Ecumenical Council, of the Synod of Bishops, and of my venerated predecessor Paul VI, I gave talks in Paris on June 1 and 2 – firstly at the Institut Catholique and then before that exceptional forum, UNESCO – spelling out the organic and constitutive connection between Christianity and culture, and therefore with man in his humanity. ‘ This connection, ’ as I said to that assembly of men and women of culture and of science from all over the world, ‘ is that which gives culture its very being and foundation. ’ And if culture is that whereby man, as man, is made more man, then the same is true of man's destiny as a whole. This indicates how important it is for the Church to exercise her pastoral responsibility of taking a close and discerning look at culture, especially that which is called ‘ living culture ’, namely, the totality of principles and values constituting the ethos of a people. ‘ This synthesis between culture and faith is not only a requirement of culture but also of faith... A faith that does not become culture is a faith that is not wholly welcomed, not entirely thought out or faithfully lived ’, as I said to you on January 16, 1982.

“ Many organisms have been at work within the Church for a long time (cf. C. Ap. Sapientia Christiana, Easter 1979), and countless are those Christians who have striven, in accordance with the Council, together with believers and non-believers, to ‘ enable people to attain the full development of their culture, a development in accord with their qualities and traditions ’ (Gaudium et Spes, No. 60). Even where agnostic, or frankly atheistic, ideologies, hostile to the Christian tradition, inspire certain key thinkers, it is even more urgent that the Church should enter into dialogue with these cultures to show the man of today that, far from being man's rival, God enables him to fulfil himself completely, in His image and likeness.

“ For man is infinitely greater than man, as is witnessed to in so striking a manner by the many men of creative genius, who have perpetuated in works of art and of thought transcendental values of truth and beauty, more or less fleetingly perceived as expressions of the absolute.

“ And so the meeting place for cultures today is a privileged terrain for dialogue among men in search of a NEW HUMANISM for our times, beyond the divergences (sic) separating them. ‘ We too ’, exclaimed Paul VI in the name of all the Council Fathers, among whom I was one, ‘ We more than anyone have the cult of man. ’ (December 7, 1965). And addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations, he proclaimed, ‘ The Church is an expert in humanity ’ (October 4, 1965) – this humanity whom it lovingly serves.

“ Is not love the great force hidden at the heart of all cultures, inviting them to surpass their irremediable finitude and to open out to Him who is the source and term of love, whence they will be given that grace which is an increase of fullness... ? ”

Even if there were perfect harmony and accord between the two cults, between adoration of God and admiration for Man, the two loves – and I cannot write this without my heart failing – , in practice there would be rivalry, and in the end the one would have to yield to the other almost entirely, until the one were merely an appendage of the other. One only has to relive those first years of your pontificate to realise that this is so. With their masonic and cultural adulteries and prostitutions, those years are filled with insults to God our Heavenly Father, with lese-majesty against Christ Our King and Saviour and against His Holy Mother, with horrible contempt and disparagement of the One Holy Church, thereby constituting that “ sin against the Holy Spirit ”, of which Jesus said, “ it shall not be forgiven in this world, nor in the world to come. ” (Mt. 12.32). For the Holy Spirit and the Church are all one, the latter being a constant creation of the former. And here I recall that Our Lady of Fatima gave exactly the same warning for our century with regard to sins against Her Immaculate Heart, because such sins are essentially an abominable crime against the Holy Ghost – the incomparable Heart of Mary being the Heart of the Church, whose Heart is in the Heart of Jesus, in the bosom of the Father.

I venture to say to You in all your grandeur, Most Holy Father, repent ! For I can see that your obsessive love of man and your devotion to his culture are inspiring you, even in your most religious pronouncements, with blasphemies against the Father, against the Son and against their common Spirit, and often precisely in their relationship with the Blessed Virgin and Holy Church ! Have regard for you soul…

SO MANY INSULTS TO GOD THE FATHER !

How can you ceaselessly despise God, Yahweh, the I AM of the Old Testament, God OUR FATHER, as Jesus Christ revealed Him to be, making us, through grace, beneficiaries of that “ power to be made His sons ” (Jn. 1.12) ? How can you despise and blaspheme against Him by affirming that every man in whatever moral or immoral, religious or irreligious state, he may happen to be, unconcerned at not having on “ the wedding garment ” (Mt. 22.11-12), is nevertheless always in “ the image and likeness of God ” ? How can you maintain that man, a creature lower than the angels and who, through malice, can sink to a level below that of the beasts, to the depths of vice worthy of hell and its demons, is always and in every state in “ the image and likeness of God ”, and that he can recover this likeness and become perfect through his own efforts ? Are you saying that such a man, in whatever state, is a “ son of God ”, that God is “ his Father ”, the “ Father of all men, making them all brothers ”; and that through his human works man, yes man, becomes God's co-operator and partner in the creation of the universe and of himself ?

All men ? Even those who, in the words of Our Lord, have Satan for their father and not Abraham or Moses or God ? (Jn. 8.39-47), those who will not be recognised on the Last Day by the Son of Man, who will say, “ I know not whence you are. Depart from me, you workers of iniquity ! ” (Lk. 13.27) ?

At Le Bourget, during your visit to France, you said: “ In alliance with Eternal Wisdom, man must grow and develop as man. He must grow and develop starting from the divine foundation of his humanity, – elsewhere, as we have seen, you refer to this as ‘ his deity ’– that is to say, in the image and likeness of God Himself. Man must grow and develop as a son of the divine adoption.

“ As son of the divine adoption, man – you do not specify which man, because you do not intend to confine yourself to Christian man – man must grow and develop through all that contributes to the world's progress and development. ” ! (Centurion p.140).

“ Our common ideal, you will say to our Muslim ‘ brothers ’, during this same visit, is a society where men recognise one another as brothers walking together in God's light and rivalling one another in doing good. ” (Ibid. p.94) Adjusting your error to suit what your hearers can take, you avoid speaking of God as Father, for these Muslims would not accept such language ! Can your deceit really extend so far ?

IMAGE AND LIKENESS OF GOD

Over and over again, you come back to this theme and develop it in various ways, sometimes naturalist, sometimes Pelagian. Naturalism knows nothing of original or mortal sin, whilst Pelagianism regards all sin as something to be effaced by human effort, and man as his own redeemer. In this way, you multiply the ambiguities, misunderstandings and confusion between atheist humanism and Christian theology. It is an amalgam that is most disconcerting for the faithful and sickening for the theologian. And from this confusion there arises the blasphemous idea of every actual living man's intrinsic and infallible likeness to God today, with man being of one society with God, having rights over God and, as we shall soon see, having an advantage over Him. Here are a few samples from your own words:

“ Made in the image and likeness of God Himself in the visible universe and established in it in order to dominate the earth, man is therefore from the beginning called to work [...]. Man is the image of God, notably through the mandate he has received from his Creator to subject, to dominate the earth. In fulfilling this mandate, man, every human being, reflects the action itself of the Creator of the Universe...

“ In becoming always more master of the earth, thanks to his work, and by affirming, also through his work, his dominion over the visible universe, man remains, in every instance and at each stage of this process, in line with the Creator's original plan; and this plan is necessarily and indissolubly tied to the fact that the human being has been created, as man and woman, ‘ in the image of God ’. This process is also universal; it concerns all men, each generation, every phase of economic and cultural development, and, at the same time, it is a process that is brought to realisation in every man, in every conscious human being. Each and everyone, in an appropriate measure and in an incalculable number of ways, takes part in this gigantic process whereby man ‘ subjects the earth ’ by means of his work...

“ The primordial and fundamental intention of God with regard to man, whom ‘ He created… to his image and likeness ’, has not been retracted nor effaced, not even when man, after having broken the original alliance with God, heard the words: ‘ In the sweat of your brow you shall eat your bread ’...

“ Work is something good for man – it is a value of his humanity – because, through work, man not only transforms nature by adapting it to his own needs, but, even more, he fulfils himself and, in a certain sense, ‘ he becomes even more man ’...

“ In the words of divine Revelation, we find this fundamental truth about man deeply inscribed: that man, created in the image of God, shares through his human labour in the work of the Creator...

“ Through his work, man is bound to imitate God, His Creator, because he bears within him – and he alone – that particular element of likeness to Him. Man is bound to imitate God as much when he labours as when he rests, since God Himself presents His creative work to man under the form of both labour and rest.

“ The consciousness of sharing through labour in the work of creation is in itself the deepest motivation for undertaking work in the various sectors. ” (Laborem exercens)

And again, we are given this commentary on the same encyclical, during the Angelus on September 27, 1981:

“ What is work ? We shall answer this question by recalling that it is primarily a collaboration with God in perfecting nature, which is in accordance with the biblical precept to dominate the earth (Gen. 1.28). The Creator wished man to explore, conquer and rule the earth and the seas, to possess their treasures, energy and secrets, so that he might once more gain his true grandeur as ‘ God's partner ’. For this reason work is noble and sacred: it is man's title to sovereignty over the created world. Furthermore, work is a means of unifying mankind, so that all men become brothers; it is a means of educating men in co-operation, of strengthening them in concord, and of stimulating them to further conquest, but especially it is a means of hope, freedom and love. ”

You thus exalt human pride in a world that is collapsing under the weight of sin, tirelessly repeating this single verse (Gen. 1.27) – I should say these single words ! – from the Book of Genesis, giving it a universal and absolute meaning, which is belied by the very next chapter which tells of the Fall, let alone by the rest of the entire Bible. You quote half the following verse (Gen.1.28) concerning dominion of the earth, but never the other half because man today could not care less about it ! Working, dominating the world, yes ! for one's enjoyment… But as for increasing and multiplying, no, that is too painful ! And filling the earth ? It is full enough as it is !

You flatter man and despise God. Thus you say that man must rest on the seventh day, not because God has reserved the seventh day to Himself, but in order to behave like God. Man is not God's servant; he is a son and a partner. Let us say, he is an equal filled with the insolent opinion of his own excellence.

A CHILD, A SON OF GOD, A JUST CLAIMANT

How do you expect religion, worship, adoration, love and fear of God to withstand such treatment ? They are suffocated. To Christians, who can see no objection to it, and to Freemasons, who are indifferent to it, you say that all men are the children of God. By grace ? By nature ? You are careful to resolve this question in such a way that grace is insidiously confused with nature, and privilege with rights. “ We call brothers and sisters ”, you said to the young people of Japan during your visit there, “ those who are the children of the same parents, of the same mother and the same father. Men are brothers according to Christ's teaching – and also according to the most common religious teaching – because God is their Father. ” (Dialogue with the young, February 24, 1981. D.C., April 5, p.324).

And to show that your language is Christian whilst your thought is humanist, that is to say not just pagan but profane, here are two perfectly explicit passages taken from speeches you gave in Turin in April 1980.

To the young people, you spoke of the “ Christian vision of man ”, of “ the person and his vocation as established by God. ” It might be thought, therefore, that here is the Head of the Church teaching the Christian mystery to the faithful. Not at all ! “ You know ”, you explained, “ that I habitually make this appeal to the person, because the person is such a basic given fact that it can never be neglected. And when I say ‘ person ’, I do not mean to talk of an autonomous humanism, restricted only to the reality of the earth. Man – it is useful to remember – has immense value in himself, but this is not a value that comes from himself, but one that he has received from God who created him to ‘ His image and likeness ’ (Gen. 1.26-27). This is the only definition that is truly adapted to man. There, young people, we have a vision of man, a vision, which, starting from God the Creator and father (sic), allows us to discover the person in himself as he is and as he should be. ”

A moment later, in addressing the crowd, you speak of this new humanism so close to your heart. And you end by unveiling your intrinsic naturalism: what you say about man in the abstract applies to all men, and what you proclaim as divine Revelation, as the Word of Christ Himself, is also and equally understood as being universal wisdom, certitude, and feeling ! And so you render religion redundant.

“ If, in order to express a positive reality, I make use of evangelical language – for obviously I am talking to you as an Apostle of Christ – I am, however, convinced that with regard to the dignity and grandeur of human labour, we can use a language that will serve all men who are truly seeking human reality in all its dimensions, and who are seeking most humbly the true dignity of man. All of these we can meet [...].

“ And I repeat again: I have spoken of the family using a Christian and theological language. But I ask myself and everyone: are not these essential values we are concerned with here precisely those that unite us all ? Can we not ask the whole human family to be a true family, a real community, where man is loved, where everyone is loved for no other reason than that he is a human being, a unique unrepeatable being, a person ? In defence and promotion of these values, we are all united. They are the human factors that unite us, and though I speak of these values in my apostolic language, I am nevertheless convinced that all will understand me. ” (Osservatore Romano)

Finally, you attempt to get this man in love with himself, infatuated with his own worth and grandeur, to accept the idea of mercy, divine and human – an idea that is intolerable to such a man, for it is detrimental to his dignity. In explaining the idea, you hope to make it acceptable to him. Your encyclical Dives in Misericordia is an Hegelian variation on the Gospel theme of the return of the Prodigal Son. In order to avoid offending the Jews and so as not to spoil the bi-polarity of your dialectic, you discard the awkward figure of the elder son. It is the elder son, in fact, who, in his insufferable pride, arrogance and egoism, and without any doubt his hypocrisy too, is an exact representation of modern man. As we know, the Father did not depart from his ordinary goodness in dealing with the elder son, nor will He spare him the final condemnation of an angered Judge.

You choose to show us only the Prodigal Son returning to his Father and being received with a mercy, interpreted in keeping with the universal master/slave dialectic, which is “ a fairy tale for puerile philosophers ”, as Molnar calls it. In this perspective, the encounter is fraught with conflict: the old father recognises that he has been routed and is moved to compassion for this young son who is stronger than himself. You represent the young son as accepting the old man's tenderness in recognition of his grandeur, obliging the father to recognise him and return to him the place and wealth to which he is entitled. It is a travesty, little understood by the good people who are unable to decipher such things, but who are delighted to hear their dear Pope speak of the Divine Mercy, like his venerable compatriot, Sister Faustina (whose cause has made little headway under your pontificate). Your opponents found your explanation ingenious, but, for all that, they are still not going to ask God for mercy, nor are they going to practise mercy towards their brothers or their enemies. And you yourself scarcely gave them an example, either...

Shall I quote from you ? The whole passage will need quoting: “ The father's fidelity to himself is entirely centred on the humanity of the lost son, on his dignity. This explains the joyous emotion felt especially at the moment of his return home. Going further, one can say that his love for this son, the love that springs from the very essence of fatherhood (there is no essence of fatherhood, as you ought to know; this is elementary philosophy and theology. Fatherhood is a relationship of a being of a particular essence) obliges (this word ‘ obliges ’ rules out grace, forgiveness, mercy and consequently filial gratitude) the father to have (to have what ? mercy ? pity ? tenderness ? no)… to have concern for the dignity of his son. ” (Dives in Misericordia, no.6)

After that, is it surprising that you, the Vicar of Christ, will no longer remind all mankind of their duties towards God ? For, despite all your doubts, uncertainties and negations, even on this point, you are still responsible for the salvation of all men and for the conditions of this salvation, that is, their duties towards God. Is it surprising that you should jettison the very idea of the Creator being able to command his creature over and above what pertains to his nature and to his benefit, and which is accessible to his reason ? Is it surprising that you seem to forget that the most good God desires to be prayed to, if only for his daily bread, not to mention all the other benefits, natural and supernatural ?

But that is not the end of your radical impiety towards God. There is no doubt that you are the Holy Father, but does this title eclipse in your own consciousness and cause the Church to forget our Heavenly Father, God thrice holy ? In this way, you suffocate the virtue of religion at its source. For I cannot use the term “ virtue of religion ” to describe that which is the cult of man as man, be that man Pope, Caesar, idol ancient or modern.

SUCH GREAT CONTEMPT FOR JESUS CHRIST

If man is self-sufficient and always first in your thinking, if God his Creator and our Heavenly Father is banished into the distance, in a word, if God is the image of Man, the servant of Man, kneeling before Man who has no further need of grace, and to whom God is a hindrance rather than a source of interest, then why should it matter to you that His Only Son should have come down on this earth ? What do the mysteries of the Incarnation and of the Redemption mean to you ? For your humanist intelligence, for your heart enamoured with man as he is in himself, for your salvation and for that of all mankind – a salvation you never speak of and of which you are assured, if indeed you believe in it – for all these, there is no need that the Word should be made flesh, that He should come into the world to dwell among men. It is no exaggeration to say that Your human Grandeur receives Him not.

There is no doubt – and let this be said once and for all – that ten, even a hundred, of your speeches will allay such a suspicion. As I have said before, you adjust the presentation of your errors to suit your audience's capacity. To the Christian masses, a Christian speech ! To mixed audiences, to an ecumenical or frankly masonic audience, Christian language will be used to convey pagan thoughts, always the same ones. But all the perfumes of Arabia, as Lady Macbeth sighed at seeing her little hand stained with the blood of her crime.... All the perfumes of the Holy Land, all the sweetness of the Gospel, which you give us to taste amid the aridity of your rhetoric, will not efface, nor would you wish it to, the radical anti-Catholicism of your post-Christian humanism.

DISFIGUREMENT OF JESUS, TRANSFIGURATION OF MAN

How do you set about interpreting all the Christian events and all the Catholic dogmas within the framework of your humanism, of your “ secular anthropocentrism ” – for you the only real framework - without attracting the notice of the masses and without the theologians being too put out by it, but nevertheless in such a way that in Jesus your idol becomes ever more apparent, the idol of “ man who makes himself god ”, whilst His innate eternal glory is extinguished and effaced, the glory of the Son of God made man, JESUS forever blessed ?

You make “ Jesus of Nazareth ” a representative – albeit a remarkable and exemplary representative – of humanity, a humanity in every respect identical to that of our own. As such, He honours the whole of humanity, He reveals humanity to itself, and He saves it from doubt and anguish. When you preach in this vein, you are inexhaustible. It is Christ who enlightens us concerning the mystery of Man. We have already analysed the many texts showing how Jesus, in proclaiming Himself King, represents man throughout the ages proclaiming his native kingship in the face of oppressive powers. Truly, one needs to be Pope to indulge in such a “ dialectic ” !

In every homily you give and at every liturgical feast in honour of each of Christ's mysteries, the mystery is always humanised and profaned, as though you were irresistibly impelled thereto by the Spirit of blasphemy who dwells within you. So successfully have you corrupted minds, that to see Jesus attributed with all the vanities of the earthly carnal man – man who is given over to sin, a fact which the wretch glories in ! – seems in the end to be giving honour to Jesus ! How fortunate He is to be the complete type of our common humanity !

I have a hundred such examples: “ He was ”, you preached before Paul VI and his cardinals, “ the model of that fundamental authenticity in which each individual can truly give life to his own values ” (Signe de contradiction, p.140). He is “ the revealer of the mystery of man ”, you said before the same audience, “ the revealer of all that constitutes his essential and inviolable dignity. ” Christ's dignity surely ? No, man's ! (Ibid. p.152) In your Gaudium et Spes, you had already prepared the conciliar mind for this unspeakable confusion of Christ's divine attributes with those human attributes which belong not to His incomparable being, no !, but to the whole community of mankind. We read: “ The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. For Adam, the first man, was a figure of Him who was to come, namely, Christ the Lord. Christ, the New Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear. ” (Gaudium et Spes, 22; quoted by you a hundred times: for example: Signe de contradiction, p.133) Adam was not a good revelation of Christ, but Christ is an excellent revelation of Man.

Spare me the necessity of multiplying these references. Just turn the pages of the Osservatore Romano. Advent is the expectation of Man. And Christmas ? That is the birth of Man, even the feast of Man. Epiphany is the manifestation of Man. Easter is the sign of life's victory over death, love's victory over hatred, Man's victory over the elements. “ Christ is risen so that man may find an authentic (you love this word ‘ authentic ’ because it means nothing, and is a mirror to reflect your own face) meaning to existence, so that man may live his life to the full, and so that man who comes from God may live in God. ”

Even the Passion of Jesus of Nazareth is snatched from Him; it is de-divinised, de-personalised and made anonymous, so as to be universalised, standardised and made into a witness to the merit, worth and dignity of every man who suffers oppression, injustice and the violation of the rights of his human person. The Eucharist itself… “ confirms our great dignity ” as Men ! Once again all this is to be found in your famous retreat which, paradoxically, earned us the fate of having you as Pope today. (Signe de contradiction, p.43)

But I shall give just one last example, as it is so … authentic. You did not pass over the most poignant moment of the Gospel; even the most moving words said of Jesus you had to take and turn into a hideous profanation ! These words are, “ Ecce homo ”. “ Behold ”, you say again to Paul VI during that Lenten retreat, “ Behold Christ facing the truth about His kingdom. Pilate had said: ‘ Behold the Man ! ’ Exactly. In him are concealed all man's kingship and all the dignity of man that He came to express and restore. For it is well known that this kingship (the kingship of Mr. Everyman) has been many times been vanquished, thrown to the ground. and dragged in the mud (making Mr. Everyman a victim, a misunderstood hero, a persecuted saint). It is well known that this dignity has many times been humiliated (Mr. Everyman's dignity, cruelly and unjustly treated, knocked down and despised !). As the Council reminds us (a plethora of references to Lumen Gentium, of course), Jesus came to manifest (and you really mean manifest) the kingship of Man, and we behold Him here, crowned with thorns, confronting humanity (He suffers the fate of Mr. Everyman, and that was unexpected; but it is to be hoped that the fate of Mr. Everyman will be improved as a result). Behold the kingship redeemed, and dignity won, through the blood of the Son of God. ” (Signe de contradiction, p.107) The final ignominy, as we shall soon see, is this: From the fearful passion suffered by the Son of God, we can measure just how valuable and important in the eyes of God is this grand and underrated Mr. Everyman !

EVERY MAN SHARES IN CHRIST'S DIVINITY

Your preaching is perfectly coherent, as a form of humanism, from the point of man who constitutes its centre. Everything radiates out from man in perfect order and returns to him. Using the sun as an analogy, he would be its centre and everything else its rays. But in such a synthesis, Christianity is divided piecemeal into various chapters and loses its coherence, because each chapter of Christianity must illustrate or prove a particular element of your humanism.

Christ, who not so long ago was no more than the revealer of man and of his dignity, now has to serve, in another chapter, as a more supernatural foundation for this dignity. We are therefore invited to recall the mystery of the Incarnation, and to believe in it with all our faith, because it will serve to buttress your humanism. You are going to prove, by this quite unexpected device, that every man, be he good or bad, be he Christian or not, is “ in some way united to God ”. This astounding demonstration is one that you have made on many occasions; there is no shortage of examples to choose from. It was already the meridian line of your Signe de contradiction, pages 134-135, the exact centre of a book of two hundred and sixty pages. It will also be the anchor of your encyclical Redemptor hominis. Let us follow the first of these texts.

You begin your demonstration with Gaudium et Spes, section 22. It is, you say, “ the crowning point of the first chapter, which deals with the human person ”. It seems that it teaches something extraordinarily and wonderfully new. You call it “ new and inspiring ”. You know what you are talking about, because in all probability you were its original author. It is, in fact, a teaching that is both new and audacious. Here is the conciliar text:

“ Because human nature was assumed, not absorbed, by Christ, by that very fact it has been raised in us also to a dignity beyond compare. For by His incarnation, He, the Son of God, has in a certain way united Himself with each man. ”

Responsibility for that daring statement can be laid at the door of the Council, which you are certain will never be reconsidered. You can, therefore, make the most of it, and you do.

“ In applying itself to a particular category of this mystery in its relationship with man, the conciliar text provides a gradual explanation of the anthropological character or even, in a certain sense (in some fashion, in a certain sense – ah ! what evasiveness, and what cunning reservations !), of the anthropocentric character of the Revelation made to men in Christ. For this revelation is centred on man: Christ fully manifests man to himself, but through the Revelation of the Father and through His love. ” This, we have already noted. It is what follows that is incredible:

“ Therefore, revelation is not a theory or an ideology; it consists in the Son of God, through His Incarnation, uniting Himself to each man (and this time you omit the prudent restriction to be found in the conciliar text ‘ in some fashion ’, which was the object of a vote) and, as man, becoming one of us and like us in everything ‘ except sin ’ (Hb. 4.15). He lived an authentic human life, and we know that his life was not easy. This brings Christ close to those who have been spared neither experience (!) nor suffering in their lives. ”

The idea insinuated in this inadequate demonstration – also found in the conciliar texts – is that through this purely material proximity, and this purely ideal union of the incarnate Son of God with us men, his neighbours, fellow citizens and contemporaries – down to you and me and every human being that has ever lived – there is effected a veritable incorporation or mystical communion, whereby every man is “ in some fashion ” penetrated with the holiness of the Son of God, and therefore with His divinity. And we merrily go along this path as far as we dare. It is the christification and, therefore, automatic and instantaneous divinisation, of the whole human race, which, of course, makes the work of christianising the peoples of the world quite pointless !

In Redemptor hominis you write: “ Christ, the Redeemer of the world, is the one who, in a unique, unrepeatable way, penetrated the mystery of man and entered into his ‘ heart ’... ‘ Image of the invisible God ’ (but are we not all that, according to your anthropology ?), He is Himself the perfect man who has restored in the children of Adam that likeness to God which had been disfigured ever since the first sin. ” (Redemptor hominis, no.8)

So, it is all done. God has united Himself now and for always, “ in some fashion ”, with every man. Will God also accompany every man to hell ? Certainly not ! But the conclusion you are most likely to draw is that there is no longer anyone in hell…

FROM CHRIST'S PASSION WE LEARN THE VALUE OF MAN !

At the other extremity of these rays of glory emanating from the solar centre that is man, you place the dogma of the Redemption, that other treasure of our faith, but to serve man's pride yet again. I recognise that under this heading you expound the mystery with an ardour and a realism that is wholly Catholic and which, at the time, I greatly admired, as I publicly confessed in my commentary on your encyclical (Redemptor hominis, no.10. Commentary in CRC No.110, English edition, May 1979). There, you proclaim and teach the mystery with authority: the Son of God, in dying on the Cross in a true sacrifice, comprising not only a spiritual act of oblation but also a bloody immolation, which He resolutely accepted and lived out in an expiatory intention, redeemed all men, paying full justice for all their sins and their hideous crimes.

But the very thing that would prove your orthodoxy, outside of all fraudulent misuse, is, alas, immediately taken hold of, turned round and brought back to serve this accursed cult of man, in both your Signe de contradiction and your Encyclical, and frequently elsewhere...

“ One final point should be remembered, ” you say in your 1976 Retreat. “ In the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God is emphasised the great, the extraordinary dignity of human nature (no ! no ! what spirit of blasphemy constantly dictates to you this diabolical inversion of the glory of God to the usurped glorification of man !). In the mystery of the Redemption Christ has revealed the worth of every man (cf. 1 Co. 6.20) and how he must fight (?!) – and to what lengths – to preserve the dignity which is peculiarly his. ” (Signe de contradiction, p.135)

It is an error ! It is too gross an error not to be conscious and deliberate. At the reference indicated, St. Paul writes: “ You have been well and truly purchased ”, or in the words of the excellent Vulgate, “ You have been purchased at a great price ”. St. Peter likewise explains: “ You were not redeemed with corruptible things, as gold or silver, from the futile ways of your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled. ” (1 Pet. 1.18)

And what is precious, of great price and of inestimable value is Christ's Blood, His redeeming love, the grace of salvation. It is the Sacred Heart of Jesus ! But in all this you see merely the currency, the fiduciary value, of the only object precious to you: Man, who is of such great worth ! He is worth the Blood of a God ! Learn, oh Man, your infinite worth ! You have singularly upped the ante !

Here is what you write in Redemptor hominis, no.10, under the obsessive sub-title, “ Christ reveals man to himself ”:

“ In the mystery of the Redemption, man finds himself freshly confirmed (sic) and he is in some way (always this evasive attenuation) freshly created (only created ?). ‘ There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ. ’

“ The man who wishes to understand himself thoroughly must not rest content with immediate, partial, often superficial, and even illusory standards and measures of his own being; he must approach Christ with his anxieties, with his uncertainties and even with his weakness and sinfulness, with his life and death.

“ He must, so to speak (a pointless restriction !), enter into Christ with his whole being (without mystical robe, without baptism, without faith, without conversion ? Just as he is ? with his sin and even his arrogance ?); he must ‘ appropriate ’ and assimilate the whole of the reality of the Incarnation and Redemption (these are no longer graces, divine gifts, to be received from the Church, through the sacraments, but a right that is acquired and appropriated !) in order to find himself. ”

Always the same satanic inversion: take Christ's treasures, enter into Christ, not by renouncing, forgetting, and losing oneself, but so as to find oneself here below and to take satisfaction in oneself !

“ If man allows this profound process (sic) to take place within him, he then bears fruits (and I here I emphasise the text, the better to draw your attention to something you occasionally dare to write, something which subordinates the divine religion and divine love to the frenzy of human egoism and pride, which thereby become the object of your worship and joy), fruits not only of adoration of God but also of deep wonder at himself (!!!). How precious must man be in the eyes of Christ, if he ‘ merited to have so great a Redeemer ’ and if God ‘ gave his only Son ’ in order that man ‘ should not perish, but should have life eternal ! ’ ”

You will, of course, not fail to exploit fully these words from St. John's Gospel, and the exultant boldness of the lyrical Easter liturgy ! And their provocative inversion, an inversion which prompts us to adore the divine mercy, will be quoted by you in support of your humanist inversion, as a revelation of man's infinite worth ! After that, how will you explain to man that the Sovereign Judge will soon throw him into the dustbins of hell without a look and without regret, if man is not converted from his evil works ? You yourself certainly do not believe in that; or at least no longer.

“ In reality, this profound admiration (oh ! to copy out so many blasphemies is more than I can bear ! It rouses my indignation ! It is really too much ! For I can all too clearly see the blindness and hardening of heart that will be produced in souls by such lies), this profound admiration for man's worth and dignity is expressed in the term Gospel, which means Good News... ”

But the Good News begins with a stern call to repentance ! “ Do penance and be converted, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand ”. (Mt. 3.2; 4.17) And it continues with this stirring warning, “ Except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish. ” (Lk. 13.5). But are we talking about the same Gospel ? One begins to wonder...

“ The Good News is bound up with Christianity. This admiration justifies the Church's mission in the world… ”

No ! What justifies the missions is the divine command to preach the Gospel to all nations, the salvation of souls, and the overflowing love of Jesus Christ. Your utter a continuous string of blasphemies.

“ …and perhaps even more so in the modern world. ”

Why so ? I challenge you to tell us. It is because the modern world is apostate and will only tolerate what is pleasing to it, what will grovel to it, and what is willing to prostitute itself to it.

“ This admiration, which is also a conviction (!) and a certitude (!) – and, in its deepest roots, it is the certainty of faith, without ceasing to vivify in a hidden and mysterious way every aspect of authentic humanism – is closely connected with Christ. It also fixes Christ's place and, so to speak, His particular right of citizenship, in the history of man and of humanity. ”

In my commentary on Redemptor hominis, written at the time in April 1979, I remarked, “ It is madness ! ” I say so again, now that I have had time to reflect. It is monstrous ! So Christ has, “ so to speak ”, a right of citizenship on earth among men because His words and deeds were – and still are, through His Church – those of admiration for, service and exaltation of Man ! One thinks one must be dreaming. One phrase comes to our lips to avenge the faith: Anathema sit !

Thus, you conduct yourself, not like Pilate the pagan, who recognised and proclaimed Christ's innocence – but whose grave fault lay in his persistent indifference towards his Saviour and King, treating Him as an ordinary man and sending Him to His death – but like Caiaphas the High Priest, whose sin you renew. It is a sin that is very grave indeed, but I think you will be greatly surprised to hear me qualify it as the sin of regicide and deicide.

For the High Priest and the Sanhedrin condemned Jesus to death and death on the Cross, the supreme malediction, because they refused to acknowledge His superiority, either kingly or divine, over other men, and over themselves in the first place… and Caiaphas particularly over himself. For them, therefore, Jesus was not allowed to be more than an ordinary common man. So they debased Him to such an extent that, in point of dignity, they preferred Barabbas to Him, and as their king, Caesar !

With more praise, and with more apparent consideration, what you are doing is equivalent to their regicide and deicide. He is King, say you ? But that is to show us that we are all kings. He is God, the Son of God ? But that is to assure us that we are all entitled to make the same claim, and to make ourselves God. Jesus is silent, as He was on Good Friday before dying from so much hatred and contempt... but that is because He recognises your authority !

In order to convict you of deliberate lying or constant aberration, I shall end with one single example on which I would be prepared to rest the whole case. Often – and, since we are still dealing with it, in this very first encyclical – you quote these words from St. John's Gospel, “ For He knew what was in man ” by way of eulogy for man and his dignity. You exploit these words in favour of your optimistic humanism. “ The missionary attitude always begins with a feeling of deep esteem for ‘ what is in man ’, for what man has himself worked out in the depths of his spirit concerning the most profound and important problems. It is a question of respecting everything that has been brought about in him by the Spirit which ‘ blows where it wills ’. ” That is taken from paragraph number 12, and the footnotes refer us to John 2.25 and 3.8 respectively. It is to guarantee the new conciliar missiology, which begins by respecting the works of the Holy Spirit, already admirable in every man, which are represented by the various religions and cultures.

Christ, or your conciliar Christ, is presented as the precursor and first of these new missionaries filled with profound respect for what is in every man, namely the excellent works of the Holy Spirit. To gauge the enormity of your lie, one merely has to open the Gospel and read. “ Now, when He was at Jerusalem, at the Pasch, upon the festival day, many believed in His name, seeing the signs which He did. But Jesus did not trust Himself unto them, because He knew all men and needed not that any should give testimony of man, for He Himself knew what was in a man. ” (Read St. Augustine's commentary on this, to be found in the Homily of the third nocturn for the feast of the Discovery of the Holy Cross, May 3).

Am I wrong in saying that you are an antichrist, whose mission is to put Christ to death a second time, in His Church ?

YOU INSULT THE VIRGIN MARY, THE MOTHER OF GOD

Your motto is well known: “ TOTUS TUUS ”. You are all Mary's, whose initial M figures on your pontifical coat of arms in the shadow of the Cross, strangely off-centred to make room for it. And it is true that this consecration to Mary immediately won you the confidence and affection of millions upon millions of Catholics. The progressives, however, found it less pleasing. Helder Camara, for example, the red archbishop of Recife, brusquely replied to a question about your “ excessive ” Marian devotion: “ We'll get him out of it ! ” And it is a fact that Marian devotion is becoming less evident as the months pass.

Moreover, there is something forced, official, repetitive, abstract and superfluous about this Marian piety, so that it becomes sterile in the end. You constantly speak of the sanctuary of Jasna Gora and of its venerable image, to whom you address all sorts of words. But, it is as though – forgive me ! – you were addressing words to Demeter, the current idol of the Steinerians, or to some tutelary goddess of a particular people. It is something more than folkloric, but it is not Catholic Marian devotion.

A FERTILITY GODDESS ?

As an example, let us take your prayer to Our Lady of Jasna Gora on August 15 last...

“ Mother of the Assumption ! I unite myself with all those who, in my native land, are celebrating the August 15 as the great feast of the Church and of the nation. – The Assumption of the Mother of God is also the feast of the maturity of the Polish land. On this day, sheaves of corn gathered from the fields and fruits produced in gardens are blessed. – I join in this blessing of the fruits of the earth.

“ At the same time, I think of all that is coming to maturity in men, of all that has matured in the thinking and consciousness of my fellow countrymen during these recent difficult years. – Man is called to live in truth and in freedom. God has given him the dignity of a son of God, so that this dignity might mature. ” (Another breath of the Spirit of blasphemy, twofold and threefold this time: every man is divinised, made a son of God ? so that man's dignity be brought to maturity ?!)

“ Mother of Jasna Gora ! I express my wish and I pray that the blessing of the Assumption may rest on all that has matured in the thinking, the consciousness and the hearts of the Polish people. – May it remain as a lasting fruit ! May it be a fruit of maturity of mind that no humiliation or violence can ever destroy or trample underfoot. May this fruit mature still more in the midst of the present trials, as the fruit of the Blessed Maximilian's testimony matured in the death bunker at Auschwitz.

“ Virgin of the Assumption, we offer you the fruits of the Polish land. Still more, we offer you, on this your solemn feast, the hard won fruit of the maturity of Polish souls. Accept it, and bless us ! Make the Polish land never cease to bear fruit and make men never cease to mature ! ”

You subject the Blessed Virgin Mary to the same treatment as Her Son Jesus Christ: a disfiguration of her sweet, pure supernatural mystery, obliterating everything contained in Her evangelical lesson of conversion and grace, of faith and good works; and a transfiguration of human and diabolical carnal realities, under the cloak of a preserved religious myth. Your hymn could equally well have been addressed to Demeter on the occasion of some pagan harvest festival, for the fruitfulness of the earth, of the womb, and of the heart of man. It is a pagan prayer for bread, liberty, prosperity, and revolution.

A CHERISHED ILLUSION OF NEUROTIC WOMEN ?

In the many pilgrimages you make during your journeys you show little interest in the actual apparition that occurred or in the revelation that was made, though their memory and lesson is preserved in the many graces received at those shrines. We need not speak of Fatima again. We think of the miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico, of Knock in Ireland, of Ephesus in Turkey. Or we could mention the Rue du Bac, here in Paris.

After a moment's recollection – never a rosary recited in common or even proposed to your hosts, never ! – you addressed this extempore prayer to the Blessed Virgin in the chapel of the Miraculous Medal. You began with the words of the Hail Mary and the invocation, necessary in that place, “ O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee. ” Alas, you went on to add:

“ Such is the prayer with which you inspired St. Catherine Labouré, o Mary, in this very place, one hundred and fifty years ago... ” The rest of the prayer is perfectly banal, a mixture of personal and collective post-conciliar self-satisfaction. As for the actual visit of the Most Blessed Virgin to this very spot, this place in the capital city where She came, this armchair, which is venerated (to the irritation of the local clergy !) because it is the seat on which She sat when She confided the wonderful things She had to say to St. Catherine – nothing ! Or rather there was something ! Your negation. Yes, you denied the reality of the facts – did you allow yourself to be impressed by the scruples of that learned and hypercritical historian, practised in all the chicanery of modern science, René Laurentin ? – by ignoring them altogether. Even worse, you spoke of a prayer with which the saint was “ inspired ”, rather than one dictated by a living human voice. Most Holy Father, it would have been better had you never entered that shrine, rather than come to deny the facts on which it is based and to annul all its benefits. After your visit, Satan's minions, who rage against the site, will feel empowered to destroy it all. In your speech, you promised to go to Lourdes the following year. Is it because She was displeased by your incredulity, that the Blessed Virgin did not allow you to go ? Might it not have been a punishment ?

A MILITANT FEMINIST… ?

Now, in the name of the entire Church militant, I must protest against the impious speech you made on the same visit to France, on the square of the royal basilica of St. Denis. It is unbelievable that you could have uttered so many impieties in the space of so short a speech, profaning the holiest of things. I shall quote two passages from it, and you know that they are the two essential themes of this talk, which is in no way falsified by me. First of all the introduction, which I quote in its entirety, so that its fall should not appear to have been precipitated by my pen:

“ ‘ Blessed are you... ’ Allow me, dear Brothers and Sisters gathered here in this venerable basilica of St. Denis, which houses the tombs of the kings of France, to greet with you, Mary, the Mother of Christ. – You know these words of salutation. You have certainly pronounced them more than once (sic), or you have heard others pronounce them (strange ‘ brothers and sisters ’ of the Pope, who have never pronounced these words themselves !). ‘ Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. ’ (Lk. 1.42)

“ It is a salutation addressed to a woman, bearing within her womb a man: the fruit of life and the beginning of life. This woman comes from afar, from Nazareth, and we see her entering the home of her relative, whom she has come to visit. On the threshold of this home, she hears the words: ‘ Blessed art thou who hast believed in the fulfilment of those things spoken to thee by the Lord ! ’ (Lk. 1.45)

“ On this last day of the month of May, the Church commemorates this visit and these words. She greets Mary the Mother of Jesus Christ. She honours her motherhood, when this is still a mystery within her womb and her heart. – I wish, first of all, to honour motherhood and that faith in man which it implies. ” (Centurion, p.95-96)

Then I continue listening with only one ear, and this is what I hear: “ To honour motherhood means to accept man in all his truth and dignity. – I would like to salute every man and every woman by virtue of the dignity that is his or hers from the very first moment (well ! what about original sin ?)... – This is the cult of motherhood. – Man's first right is the right to life. We must defend this right and this value. Otherwise, the whole logic of faith in man, the whole programme of truly human progress will be undermined and will collapse (abortion, a crime against man and against progress ! Is this all ? And is this the Pope who is speaking ?).

“ On the threshold of Zechariah's house, Elizabeth says to Mary: ‘ Blessed art thou who hast believed ’ (cf. Lk. 1.45). Let us honour motherhood, because in it is expressed faith in man… – the act of faith in man… – The Mother… proclaims her faith in man. – From the beginning, we must believe in man. – By virtue of the very fact that he is man, thanks to that fact and thanks to his very humanity, he is the image and likeness of the infinite God. ”

You never speak of grace, never except in phrases such as “ grâce à son humanité ” and “ grâce à sa dignité ”, when you tell us that “ thanks to his humanity ” and “ thanks to his dignity ”, man is great and man is transcendent. Thanks to man, man is man ! and more than man, in some way God !

… AND A REVOLUTIONARY MILITANT ?

So, we have fallen from the Virgin “ blessed among all women ” to any woman at all; we have fallen from the divine motherhood to motherhood in general; we have fallen from Mary's faith in the Word of God to faith in man; from Jesus the Son of God made man, to any offspring of any human couple without faith or law other than human. You will complete your speech – which is more masonic than Christian, more Communist than evangelical – with what St. Pius X denounced as “ blasphemous comparisons between the Gospel and the Revolution ”. (Letter on the Sillon, August 25, 1910)

“ Is not the fundamental problem of work today one of justice and of the struggle for social justice ? – Today's liturgy, in the feast of Mary's Visitation, also speaks of justice in a certain way, does it not ? Does not the truth of God's justice, as well as the adoration of God, whose mercy is from generation unto generation, ring out through the words placed by the Evangelist, St. Luke, in the mouth of the Virgin (she would not have been sufficiently intelligent, nor even inspired no doubt, to find such words for herself ! This is a field in which you have no competence, but you want to appear modern in the eyes of the Modernists who might scoff), who bears in Her womb the Son of God (in contrast with your approach a short while ago, you now need to place them absolutely apart and high above us, She and He, so that their revolutionary message be made to appear all the more authoritative, divinised and absolute) ?

“ ‘ He has shown might in His arm; He has scattered the proud in the conceit of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich He has sent empty away. ’ (Lk. 1.51-53)

“ These words mean that the world willed by God is a world of justice. That the order that must prevail in men's relationships with one another is based on justice. That this order must constantly be brought to realisation in the world. ”

But no, wait ! Justice is not of this world, as everyone knows ! Or else it would have been necessary to wait for you, you and the militant Christian-Communists of St. Denis the Red, together with all their unionist friends paid to be there that day, who surrounded you.

“ The world of human work and the great society of workers, if they are built on moral strength as they always should be, ought consequently to remain aware of the dimensions of injustice that have developed in the contemporary world. They must be capable of struggling nobly (nobly, of course !) for every form of justice: for man's true good, for the rights of the person, of the family, of the nation and of all humanity. This justice is the very condition for peace as Pope John XXIII so penetratingly expressed in his encyclical Pacem in terris. Readiness to engage in such a noble struggle, a struggle for man's good in all its dimensions, is implicit in the words pronounced by Mary as She bore Christ in her heart, words that She pronounced on the subject of the living God when She said : ‘ He has showed might in His arm; He has scattered the proud in the conceit of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich He has sent empty away. ’

“ One day Christ will say: ‘ Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice, for they shall be satisfied. ’ (Mt.5.6) ”

As though the Beatitudes were to do with social justice … and socialist justice ! Or as though the Magnificat were to do with revolutionary conflict ! You end this speech by absorbing this revolutionary Magnificat into your humanism, “ this hunger and thirst ” for social justice, a desire which supposedly impregnates “ the words of the Mother, who venerates God with Her whole soul, whilst She bears in Her heart the Son of God ”. You ask that this “ noble struggle ” for social justice be attributed to its original founders: the Blessed Virgin Mary and Jesus of Nazareth.... “ We must demand it, if not for other reasons (those other reasons must be religious, but you dare not mention them in front of all these militant communists !), then at least for the sake of the whole truth about man. We must demand it in the name of man's interior freedom and dignity, and also in the name of his entire history. ”

The Revolution, yes, but Christian ! And why Christian ? In the name of integral humanism ! The Magnificat, the Beatitudes, are they manifestos of the humanist revolution ? So say you, but we are tired of it. One thing is certain: not one of your audience will leave that meeting with the least idea or the slightest desire of saying the rosary with his family. To do that would seem like abandoning the struggle, the noble struggle ! Nor will any of your hearers want to go to Vespers next Sunday for the joy of singing the Magnificat. To do that would look like sinning against Man !

You exploit devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, which is still very strong in the Church, for the sake of your humanism. As for true devotion to Our Lady, you neither have it nor radiate it. On the contrary, you stifle such devotion in souls to the extent that the cult of Man and of Woman takes root and grows strong in those souls that listen to you.

YOU EXTINGUISH THE SPIRIT. YOU DEVALUE THE CHURCH !

If Christ is the exemplary, nay mythical, figure of Man, and if the Virgin Mary Mother of God is the image of Woman, the source of life, the Mother “ who has faith in man ”, what will the Church be for you ? Jesus and Mary have ascended into Heaven and are beyond the reach of God's enemies. They cannot be touched by the calumnies and insults of their perfidious friends. No one can confound Them, other than by rhetorical blasphemies, with the tainted realities of this world… But the Church and her Holy Spirit – her divine Spirit, who dwells in her and with her, and who is her very Soul – can be treated as purely human things. He and She are vulnerable to the persecutions of their enemies and to the ill treatment of their perverse sons and hypocritical disciples.

Now, he who has sinned will sin again. He who has betrayed will betray again. It would be surprising, and inconsistent on your part, were you not to disfigure still further this divine mystery that has literally fallen into your power. It would be surprising were you not to lower her to the level of a purely human thing, the better to transfigure ordinary human things with divine splendour. This is precisely what we see wherever we look, for the possibilities of sacrilege here are vast indeed.

You liken the Holy Spirit inhabiting the Church to a purely natural spirit who is omnipresent in Man, leading all peoples to their ultimate and universal fulfilment. You liken the Church to a work of human genius, one of humanity's more grandiose successes, to be sure. There is no better way to “ extinguish the Holy Spirit ” and to devalue and discredit the Holy Church of Jesus Christ, our Mother and our only Hope !

NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS, A MASONIC BUILDING !

Parisians were not a little surprised at the strange eulogy you addressed, during your visit to France, in honour of their outstanding cathedral, Notre-Dame in Paris. The Cathedral was always loved as “ God's dwelling place among men ”, as is sung in the liturgy of the Dedication, proper to the diocese of Paris, a chant of mystical theology and unparalleled depth… The Cathedral was always believed to be the work of Christians inspired by their faith, built to the glory of Christ and of His Holy Mother. After hearing you, these praises will have to remain unsung. No, not exactly; they can be reversed. We shall no longer sing in praise of holy Christian effort, but in honour of the secret knowledge of the Freemasons, the true builders of our great cathedrals to the glory of Man's genius ! You spoke as follows:

“ Do you love ? – A fundamental question and a topical question. It is a question that opens the heart and gives meaning to life. It is a question that bestows on man his true dimension. In this question, the whole man must find his self-expression and also the means for surpassing himself. ” (Centurion, p.43)

The spirit of blasphemy in you has already brought you down from our holy religion to the so-called religion of man who surpasses himself in the experience of love and thus makes himself superior to all. Caught in this masonic web, you continue:

“ Do you love me ? – This question was put here a moment ago, in this place. This is an historic place, a sacred place. Here we encounter the genius of France, the genius that was expressed in the architecture of this temple (sic) eight centuries ago, and which is still here to bear witness to man (my emphasis). In fact, man, through all the formulas whereby he seeks to define himself (here, your language is overtly masonic and gnostic; what audacity ! and what contempt for your Catholic audience, who will drink in this poison like water !), cannot forget that he himself is a temple: he is the temple of the Holy Spirit. For this reason, man has built this temple, which has paid homage to him (to whom ? to Man or to the Holy Spirit ? To both, of course, for in your view they are one and the same reality: the Spirit of Man, this Spirit of blasphemy which dwells within you) for eight hundred years: Notre-Dame. ”

The shock of the words is deliberate: Notre-Dame bears witness to Man, not collective or abstract man, but to any Man. Secretly, it bears witness to the freemasons, the supposed heirs to the gnostic traditions of the builders of Solomon's Temple and of the mediaeval cathedrals, but today the builders of Man, the builders of the Luciferan Temple proclaimed as the Temple of the Holy Ghost. What language for a Pope ! It sounds like Malraux, a great masonic initiate, who saw in mediaeval architecture the revenge of man against byzantine art, which “ transfigured ” man, and so devalued and destroyed him. “ The same transfiguration ”, said this malevolent mind, “ can be seen applied to all the innocents right down to the triumphant Christs... Man becomes aware of himself and invents his heroes. The Christian genius becomes that of the Western offensive. ” The offensive against God !

The consequences of such papal words, which might be no more than a bizarre mental game, are immense and tragic for the Church. If Notre-Dame is a manifestation of 13th century human genius, the genius of Man tormented by a Spirit urging him to surpass himself in his works of Art, then what can be said about the other architecture along the Seine ! The Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe a little further to the west, and then in an even more modern style, the Eiffel Tower and the Défense ! Since this “ Progress ” of Art down the centuries is the progress of humanist apostasy and the triumph of the Anti-Church, for a Pope to pay homage to it is the deadliest disavowal of the Church that could be articulated. Life today is not to be found at Notre-Dame; it is elsewhere, at Beaubourg or at the Trocadero !

PRAYER, HUMANIST RECREATION

Let us go into Notre-Dame, this exhibition temple to man's genius rather than God's dwelling house among men, where the divine praises perpetually resound on the lips of the Church's children.... What, according to you, is done in this place ? People pray. Yes, but what is prayer ? We heard equally strange reflections from you in answer to this question on the occasion of your pilgrimage to Mentorella on October 30, 1978 – a pilgrimage which were pleased to hear about, learning that you were accustomed to going there for prayer.

“ Prayer ”, you said then, “ which in various ways expresses man's relationship with the living God, is the Pope's prime duty and, as it were, his prime message. ” And you went on to refer to the witness of “ authorised persons ”, who have “ confirmed modern man's spiritual awakening. ” But the terms in which you described this were suddenly disturbing ! “ Many of these testimonies ”, you said, “ speak of needs of the human spirit that are not inferior to those of the body. At the same time, these people have indicated that, in the first place, the Church is capable of satisfying these needs. ” Well, well ! It is a very strange testimony from very suspect witnesses – witnesses of humanist, and certainly modernist, mentality, awarding an Oscar to the church of their choice...

“ The Pope's humble response to these sentiments is as follows:

“ The Church prays, and the Church wishes to pray, desiring to serve the simplest and at the same time the most splendid gift of the human spirit (ah !) which is brought to realisation through prayer. Prayer is, in effect, the primary expression of man's inner truth, the primary condition for the spirit's authentic freedom (oh dear !).

“ The Church prays, and wishes to pray, in order to hear the interior Voice of the divine Spirit. She prays so that the inexpressible groaning of all creation may speak in and with us. The Church prays, and wishes to pray, in order to respond to the deepest needs of man, albeit restricted and limited by the conditions and contingencies of everyday life, by the contemporary world, by weakness, sin, despondency and by a life which seems meaningless. Prayer gives meaning to the whole of life, at every moment and in all circumstances.

“ That is why the Pope, as Vicar of Christ on earth, desires especially to be united with all those who tend towards union with Christ in prayer, wherever they may be and in whatever circumstances they may find themselves. With the Bedouin (?) in the steppes (!), with the Carmelite and the Carthusian in the depths of their cloister, with the sick person immobilised on his hospital bed, with the sufferer in agony, with the active man in the fullness of his life, with individuals who are burdened and humiliated... with everyone, everywhere. ”

Such is your constant teaching. We shall come across your “ Bedouin ” again soon in another of your speeches, where you illustrate your certainty that every man is inhabited by the Holy Spirit, who is also the Spirit of the Earth, and who is said to be groaning in creation with unspeakable sighs, as He aspires to transcendence and seeks happily to find His way forward in man. But, let us be honest, that is a brutal telescoping of verses 23 to 26 of the 8th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, which speak of the Holy Spirit inhabiting our souls, and verses 19 to 22, which recall the unhappiness of creation as it awaits its liberation, not through any immanent progress nor through the spirit of man, but through the work of the saints !

Prayer, for you, consists in this need, this aspiration, this impetus towards transcendence. It is a form of sublime spiritual activity wherein man discovers himself, conquers himself, surpasses and divinises himself, under the impulse of the Holy Spirit within him. For such prayer, all temples are equally good, and perhaps the temple of Nature is the best after all ! – to judge from your own life, as testified to by your closest friends. (Your article In memory of Jersy Ciesielski in Tygodnik Powszerchny, December 20, 1970) And now we are given a further blow made by the new Pope against his own Church ! It is precisely at this point in my reflection that I come across your scheming Bedouin. You had already referred to him apropos of prayer in your retreat to Paul VI. I shall have to quote you at length to be sure of not distorting your thinking:

“ Man has an idea of infinity; he makes use of it in his scientific work, in mathematics for instance. Thus he discovers within himself a sort of correlative for Him who is (Ex. 3.14), for the perfect Infinite, for Him whom the Holy Scripture and the Church bear witness to, when after the preface the faithful proclaim: ‘ Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of the universe. Heaven and earth are full of your glory ! ’ A God of infinite Majesty !

“ The Trappist or the Carthusian confess this God in a complete life of silence. It is to him that the Bedouin, wandering in the desert, turns at his hour of prayer. And then there is the Buddhist monk, wrapt in the contemplation that purifies his thought and prepares the way to Nirvana: but does all this come from Nirvana alone ? God is absolutely transcendent and entirely surpasses the whole of creation, all that is visible and tangible. ”

Whereupon, you relate a most disturbing fact, which you quote by way of example, as something remarkable:

“ During its first ordinary session the Synod of Bishops considered among other things the question of atheism. For this occasion, the religious of the contemplative orders had sent a letter to the Synod (on whose instigation ? whose, if not Yours ?). In this letter, they attempted to express their understanding of the real-life experience of present-day atheists, considered it in the light of their own experience, that is to say, as people living the faith fully and wholly dedicated to God, whom they often found themselves searching for in the darkness of the spirit and of the senses. During that darkness, God is absent from their thoughts, imperceptible to their hearts, and apparently dead, as far as the human dimensions of their spirit and senses can detect. But this is precisely the God who exists and lives in all plenitude: He who is Imperceptible and absolutely Transcendent, a God of infinite Majesty. The paradox of a God of infinite majesty and a God of absolute transcendence ! ” (Le signe de contradiction, p.31)

You make this universal (atheist) mysticism a “ truth ”, to which St. John of the Cross allegedly bore witness, and we already know how, in his name, you have opened the Church to atheists. But to do that is to extinguish the Holy Spirit and to devalue the Church. It is even a devaluation of the Jewish, Muslim and pagan religions ! But to make St. John of the Cross stand surety for such a godless mysticism is something I utterly repudiate. His doctrine does not exclude but implies the maternal communication of the Holy Spirit through the sacraments and the teaching of Holy Church, and of her alone ! The highest mysticism has never dispensed anyone from the sacraments and teachings of the Holy Church. Quite the contrary ! Which is why, moreover, there is no true mysticism outside the Church, and why atheism is the opposite of contemplation ! As for your cherished atheists, they are God's enemies ! And your recycled contemplatives are very strange monks and nuns indeed...

But you insist on this humanist interpretation of prayer which, I repeat, extinguishes the Holy Ghost, devalues the Church, and demoralises the faithful. You bring Frossard back to this idea just when he was once conducting himself as a good Catholic in his dialogue with one who no longer is ! I shall not go over this conversation with you, as you know it better than I do (N'ayez pas peur, p.227-232). I shall just quote the significant passage:

“ Your remarks, ” you say in answer to your comrade, who was so rightly bemoaning the loss of the spirit of prayer, “ are bound to be thought-provoking in today's Church. What is more, they are bound to prove disturbing. They are bound to prove disturbing from the standpoint of (of what ? of God's Glory ? of the love of Christ ? of the need for grace ? of our eternal salvation ? no, of course not…) what is taking place in man. You rightly pose the question (a question so modernist in form that it must have been suggested to him): ‘ Are not prayer and contemplation a vital necessity for the human soul ? ’

“ The decline of prayer among human beings and society ”, you answer, “ is agonising, not only for the Church's vitality but also, and above all (ah ! this ‘ above all ’ was whispered into your ear by the Spirit of blasphemy within you) for man himself. How could one fail to be disturbed by this wilting of the sense of transcendence, by this indifference to the challenge (sic) thrown before us by the absolute (sic), and by the shutting of ourselves up in immanence, or rather our subjection to what is transitory ? ” (Ibid. p.229)

What causes you to feel anguish about this loss of the spirit of prayer is not the “ death of God ”, but rather the obscuring of the idea of transcendence, which will end in man no longer believing in himself and losing – something far more serious – the sense of his own transcendence. It would be the “ death of man ”, a catastrophe !

After that, it is not surprising that you came to regard all religions as equal, as soon as Man could find nourishment in them for his intimate aspirations to the Transcendent ! “ It was in this spirit, ” Frossard recalled, “ that John Paul II addressed these words to the Jews, Muslims and non-Catholic Christians of Portugal (Catholic Portugal ! Oh, the corrupter of nations !):

“ Whatever our religion may be, we are united by our common witness to faith in God. We are all called upon to proclaim religious values in a world that denies God. Our witness and our example can help those who are still searching... To witness to one's faith is to contribute to one's neighbour's well being and to the general good of humanity. Jews, Christians and Muslims, Abraham, our common ancestor, asks us all to follow the path of love and mercy. ” (Ibid. p.258)

In the guise of love and mercy, in the guise of the Christian faith, you have struck a first-rate blow against Christ's Church, thereby lowering her to the same rank as that of false religions. That is the sin against the Holy Spirit, which will be forgiven neither in this world nor in the next. If what I say is true, retract. If, on the other hand, what I say is false, then tell me where I am wrong and what my errors are. Condemn my errors from the height of your infallible magisterium ! But stop discrediting the Church and extinguishing the Holy Spirit !

THE MISSIONS RIDICULED

For centuries, the Church had obeyed the formal command of Our Lord Jesus Christ by sending out missionaries to preach to all nations, in the hope of converting them, baptising them, teaching and obliging them to practise all that Our Lord had taught men for their salvation. The One Holy Church could not and cannot be anything but “ missionary ” ! But not for you, no longer for you. Through your profound and serious devaluation of her being, you have discredited the Church's most cherished work and also her most courageous labourers !

Instead of converting the pagans and bringing heretics, schismatics, apostates and excommunicates back to the Church – for, in the words of the dedication hymn to Notre-Dame de Paris: “ Haec est cymba qua tuti vehimur ” – instead of the missions, we now hear you talk of converting the Church to the world, of aligning the Church with universal humanism. What right have we, you ask, to disturb and upset all those many peoples who, without our help and apart from us, are making progress along the path of culture ? Why should we upset their valuable native culture, when they are striving unaided to gain their auto-transcendence ?

So what will become of, what has already become of, our dear missions and our admirable missionaries ? The missionaries suffer, and the missions are fast disappearing.

“ The mission ”, you say in your encyclical, Redemptor hominis, “ is never an act of destruction, but always a responsible resumption of values and a new construction, even if in practice this high ideal has not always been complied with. ” (No.12)

Thus you calumniate the true, supernatural, courageous ideal – that ideal which braves the fury of hell and often ends in earning the missionary the martyr's palm – and you replace it with a higher ideal, one which was unfortunately ignored and despised by Church of yesterday. It is a cowardly, flat, shameful and sterile ideal, more masonic than Christian, and stemming from an antichrist humanism. Within such an unrestricted humanism, will we still be entitled to convert the pagans ? No. Unless they insist or express a desire that truly comes from themselves. These are your directives:

“ As for conversion, which must take root (?) in the mission, we know that it is the work of grace, in which man must fully rediscover himself. ” The language is not clear, but it becomes clearer in your explanation to André Frossard. “ Concerning non-Christian religions, the missionary mandate must include a better knowledge of the ‘ faiths' professed. A Christian who is conscious of his share in Christ's mission – which contains the fullness of what God has willed to reveal of Himself to mankind – will not cease to desire that this fullness should be shared by every man. ”

In this competition to see which religion tells of God best, you do not seem to fear that anyone's eternal salvation might be at stake ! But you have to elude the scandal expressed by Frossard at this cosy postconciliar missiology: “ Like many converts, who are so bowled over by the good news they have received that they cannot keep quiet about it, I find this mute form of apostolate hard to understand. Is it in line with Vatican II ? ” But you insist on a missionary zeal which becomes all the more inspired the more it loses its raison d'être:

“ The missionary will not cease to work whilst fully respecting the convictions of those who believe otherwise (ah ! this ‘ otherwise ’ is dictated to you by the Spirit of blasphemy again !). But often he will not cease to pray for what he knows is more than the fruit of man's religious thinking, noble though it may be, but the gift of God alone. He will leave to God alone any judgement on the consciences of his brethren, who may believe otherwise or not at all. And he will leave to God alone the right to bring to fruition His truth in men's hearts and minds (after all, that's His job not ours !), whilst doing everything in his power towards this end. ” (N'ayez pas peur, p.109-111)

The punishment for this papal and conciliar neglect is clearly inscribed in the facts; it had already been foreseen by that admirable Phalange of missionary bishops at the Council: recruitment to missionary institutes has dried up, the conversion of pagans, dissidents and atheists has practically come to a stop, and the morale of the missionaries could not be lower. They are either down in the dumps, or else they have followed your call and example and have become “ experts in humanity ”, dedicating themselves to prosperity, culture, justice and peace on earth with no further concern for the salvation of souls or for the universal lordship of Jesus Christ. You have extinguished the Spirit and prostituted the Church.

THE CHURCH'S HOLINESS PROFANED

This evidence is overwhelming, Most Holy Father. It shows your irrepressible inclination to devalue all that is true, supernatural, holy and Catholic in order to exalt all that is false, unwholesome, carnal and worldly in the humanism of these times. And you do so with a perversity that is as subtle as it is vigilant. I shall just take a few examples, selected as though at random from hundreds of others.

MARIA GORETTI,
HEROINE OF WOMEN'S DIGNITY,
...BUT NO LONGER OF CHRISTIAN VIRGINITY AND CHASTITY !

This is your speech to the pilgrims come from Sinigaglia to Rome in 1980. Who will notice how your subtle demonstration makes no reference to virtue as a gift from God, exercised for God to the point of martyrdom ? Who will notice that you refer to virtue as if it stemmed from human pride and worked for its exaltation ? I shall have to quote you in full, if I am to attempt to unmask your secular humanism wrapped up in language that is still apparently very Christian:

“ Maria Goretti's message is certainly not manichean, nor is it a depreciation of the body and of sexuality, for the biblical revelation offers a very profound and sane theology of the body. It is a message about either personal dignity on the purely human plane, which prohibits all vexation and violence, or else the consecration of its energies, including the physical, to the Lord and to the Church through fundamental obedience to God's law. The Christian does not cultivate chastity or any other virtue for its own sake, making it an isolated or absolute ideal. St. Paul warns us against this, ‘ And if I should deliver my body to be burned and have not charity, it profits me nothing ’ (1 Co. 13.3). Chastity is a very noble value when it is ordained for Christ and set in the context of a typically Christian life, stamped with the distinctive mark of the Holy Ghost, one of whose fruits is ‘ self mastery ’ (Gal. 5.22), preceding and encompassing many others.

“ That is why the invitation addressed by Maria Goretti to all of us, and especially to the young people, is that we should guard profoundly our baptismal identity and incorporate (my emphasis) into the formation of this identity, as one of its components, the jealously nurtured culture of our own dignity, not only as a Christian, but also purely as a human being, for whom chastity is an expression of primary importance. ”

It was a long time coming, but it was said in the end and by way of conclusion to the whole of your speech. At the Parc des Princes, you had already invited the young people to practise chastity, not through imitation of Jesus and of Jesus Crucified, nor in the spirit of penance or for the sake of leaving the heart free for prayer and charity, nor out of submission to the divine law and for the splendour of the sacrament of marriage and its fruitfulness, but precisely for that which it is not and cannot be, except by way of an impossible pagan ideal: respect for one's own human dignity and desire for self-mastery.

In the preaching of a Pope, what an inversion ! Let us re-read this allocution. Where does it all begin and where does it all end for Maria Goretti ? It begins with man and his dignity, for which Jesus Christ is the model and guardian, and it ends in man and his dignity, which is the justification and final law for all his actions. To be chaste and to die for chastity is indeed presented as an exigency of one's baptism. But it is no longer through desire to imitate Jesus and Jesus Crucified, who suffered in the flesh and gave up His body to death to be a ransom for our sins. The motive of chastity is no longer that the devil should be refused possession of a body that is the temple of the Holy Ghost redeemed by the Lord at a great price (1 Co. 10.20)... Chastity is now practised out of desire to guard intact the dignity of the human person through one's autonomy and the free disposal of one's being, both mind and body.

For, we note, Most Holy Father, the co-ordination and intentional ordering of these terms, ascending as they do: “ anche la coltivazione nutrita e gelosia della propria dignita non solo cristiana ma pura humana ”... In which case, there are no saints and martyrs, but simply heroines of human pride... examples of which are hard to find in any humanism, ancient or modern ! It is a reinterpretation of Christian holiness according to a modernism which is atheistic and… post-Christian !

ST. MAXIMILIAN KOLBE,
HUMANIST MARTYR TO THE RIGHT TO LIFE !

At the canonisation of Fr. Kolbe on October 10, 1982, you gave two carefully intertwined motives for the surrendering of his life, the one Christian and the other humanist. The former stemmed from pure charity; the latter from a desire to assert human rights, more ostentatious than philanthropic. Here is your novel modification of Christianity courtesy of your “ secular anthropocentrism ”:

“ Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, who was himself a concentration camp prisoner, demanded, on the very site of death, the right to life of an innocent man, one of four million. This man is still alive and is present here amongst us. For this man, Father Kolbe demanded the right to life by declaring himself ready to die in the place of one who was a father of a family and whose life was necessary to them. Fr. Maximilian Kolbe thus reaffirmed the Creator's exclusive rights over the life of an innocent man and bore witness to Christ and to love. The Apostle St. John in fact writes: ‘ By this have we known love: He gave His life for us. And we as well must give our life for our brothers. ’ By giving his life for a brother, Fr. Maximilian Kolbe… made himself like Christ in a particular manner. ”

But here is something more malign. Why the desire to make this saint a martyr ? He died heroically as a willing victim of fraternal charity, but it cannot be said that he died as a witness to the Catholic faith, to his own faith... unless, and this is your secret intention, you are now making a subtle substitution for the Catholic faith. Whereas witnessing to the Catholic faith was what made the martyr, you now seek martyrs to “ faith in man ” and the “ struggle for human dignity ”, purely masonic notions. And such “ martyrs ” you would have honoured by the whole Church, along with Gandhi, Martin Luther King and other “ martyrs ” of the cause of Man ! That is exactly how things stand. Here is the end of your homily:

“ As always when proclaiming the sanctity of her sons and daughters, the Church in this present case seeks to act with all due precision and responsibility (sic) by penetrating every aspect of the Servant of God's life and death. ”

I interrupt for a moment to protest that this assurance, in the case of Fr. Kolbe, is a complete lie. And you know it perfectly well.

“ Even so (?) the Church must also be careful, in reading the signs of holiness given by God to His earthly servant, not to let their full eloquence and definitive meaning escape her. That is why, in judging the cause of the Blessed Maximilian Kolbe, it has been necessary – since his beatification – to have regard for the many voices of the people of God and especially those of our brothers in the episcopate of Poland and Germany, who have asked that Maximilian Kolbe be proclaimed a saint under the title of Martyr.

“ Faced with the eloquence of Blessed Maximilian's life and death, one cannot but recognise what seems to be its principal and essential content, given by God to the Church and the world in his death.

“ His death freely accepted out of love for man (ah ! there we are…) is surely a particular fulfilment of Christ's words. Does not Maximilian Kolbe conform in a particular way to Christ, the model of all martyrs, who gives His life on the Cross for His brothers ? Has not this death a particularly penetrating eloquence for our period ? Is it not a particularly authentic witness of the Church in the contemporary world ?

“ Hence, by virtue of my apostolic authority, I have decided that Maximilian Kolbe, who, after his beatification, had been venerated as a Confessor, should now be venerated as a Martyr ! ‘ Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His friends ! ’ ”

Nothing is lacking; the press campaign, public opinion, and now the supreme decision. Maximilian Kolbe will henceforth be the first Catholic Martyr of the “ right to life ”, of “ human dignity ”, and of the “ love of man as man ” for man himself ! He will be a Wojtylian martyr to be exploited by both atheists and humanists, Marxists in the East and masons in the West. He will also serve as a patron for the world's anti-fascists, denouncing in the nazi torturer the negation of Human Rights and of the Ideals of 1789, which must now be the Creed for all mankind.

And yet, there is something in the life of this St. that prevents such a use of his relics. It is his very vocation, his fight against freemasonry and its satanic ideals through the formation of a wholly Catholic Militia under the banner of Mary Immaculate. This is where you necessarily commit what the catechism calls a “ lie of omission ”. This saint, therefore, is against you both in Heaven and on earth ! (You must have read Jedrzej Giertych's Libel against a Saint. “ The Truth about St. Maximilian Kolbe, Knight of the Immaculate and implacable enemy of Freemasonry ” - Approaches No.79. This Giertych is heroically continuing the work of Roman Dmowski and remains, as you know, your compatriot and admiringly devoted servant.)

THE MARTYRS OF OTRANTO,
HEROES OF HUMAN DIGNITY !

With the same inversion and profanation, you eulogised the martyrs of Otranto on October 5, 1980. Certainly, you said that their sacrifice was the supreme witness to the Catholic faith, and that it was “ an extraordinary testimony to Christ. ” You rightly quoted the Book of Wisdom: “ Afflicted in few things, in many they shall be well rewarded, because God has tried them, and found them worthy of Himself. ” (Wisdom 3.5)

But you continue: “ We touch here a particularly important point in the fact of martyrdom. Martyrdom is a great trial; it is, in a certain sense (beware ! whenever you use this phrase, it generally precedes an enormous sophism, an audacity or a counter-truth), the definitive and fundamental trial. It is man's greatest test (and here is what we feared !), the test of man's dignity in the sight of God Himself (!!!). It would be difficult to add to what the Book of Wisdom has to say in this regard: ‘ God has tried them and found them worthy of Himself ’. No human measure can exceed that found in God Himself: ‘ in the sight of God ’.

“ Martyrdom, therefore, is a trial through which man (sic) passes ‘ in the sight of God ’, a trial where, aided by the power of God (ah, after all that !), man carries off the victory. ”

Rather than the humble and loving fiat of the Christian who calls on the grace of God in order that he may win the victory, and who consummates his sacrifice totally united to Jesus, with Him and in Him, thereby bearing a “ magnificent witness ” of absolute fidelity to his Lord… does not your humanist conception of martyrdom make it out to be some kind of challenge brought by man to impress his God ? It recalls those words of satanic pride uttered by the Wicked Man in the prophecy of Isaiah 14.14, “ Ero similis Deo ! ” Triumphing over the final and fundamental test in the sight of God, I shall become His equal !

It would be the end of religion on earth, if the Church did not fight with all the might of her institutions and of her holy living traditions against this apostasy at the end of the times. But how much longer can the Church still endure your blows ?