REPROVING PROTESTANT HERESIES
On IMAGES

Protestants will ask why are true Catholic Churches decorated with images and statues in direct violation of the second commandment?

The second commandment is, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” Protestants, of course, call that the third commandment. But they are wrong in doing so, having taken that part of the first commandment which refers to images as the second of God’s commandments. But do those words forbid the making of images? They do not. God was forbidding idolatry, not the making of images. He said, “Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image of anything in the heaven above, or in the earth beneath. Thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them.” God deliberately adds those last words, yet non-Catholics ignore them. He forbids men to make images in order to adore them. But He does not forbid the making of images. The commandments are given in Exodus, XX. But in that same Book, XXV., 18, you will find God ordering the Jews to make images of Angels!

Would any man accuse God of not knowing the sense of His own law? He says, “Thou shalt make also two cherubims of beaten gold, on the two sides of the oracle.” In other words, the Jews were to make images of things in the heaven above. And if non-Catholic interpretation be true, why do such non-Catholics violate God’s law by making images of things in the earth beneath? Why images of kings and politicians in our parks? Why
photographs of friends and relatives? On Protestant or other non-Catholic theory, such critics could not even take a snapshot of a tree. You would be making an image of a thing in the earth beneath. The critics strain at a gnat and swallow a camel! This is the fruit of their private interpretation of Scripture. No. God does not forbid the making of images; He forbids the making of images in order to adore them.

Protestants have been known to say they have seen more idols in Catholic Churches than sincere Christians.

No Protestant has ever seen an idol in a true Catholic Church. An image is an idol only when it is the object of divine worship. Protestants and other non-Catholics have seen images in Catholic Churches, but every true Catholic (i.e, NOT the Counterfeit-Catholics of the V2 Novus Ordo Contra-Church) knows that divine worship cannot be offered to such images. Would the Protestant critics call the Statue of Liberty, in New York harbor, an idol?  As for their not seeing sincere Christians in a Catholic Church, you cannot expect to test the sincerity of a Christian by the color of his tie or the shape of his shoes.

Protestants will say God forbade us to worship plaster statues as Catholics do, yet Catholics would send missionaries to convert heathens who do the same thing.

God absolutely forbids us to worship wooden and stone statues, and Catholics are not so foolish as to commit so serious a sin. But Catholics do honor representations of those who are in heaven, just as we all honor our dead soldiers by tributes of respect to their Cenotaphs. If I lift my hat to the flag of my country as I pass the memorial to our dead soldiers, am I honoring the cloth or the stone, or what it stands for? If it be lawful in that
case, it is certainly lawful to honor the memorials of the dead heroes of Christianity, the Saints. True Catholic missionaries used to go to heathen tribes of foreign lands to save them from the idolatrous worship of man-made gods. No need to travel anymore because in the U. S. today we are surrounded by heathens. That situation is an outcome of the Coup D’Etat of the papacy at the October 1958 Papal Conclave and the subsequent, illicit Second Vatican Council (October 1962-December 8, 1965) that began the destruction of Catholic dogmas, doctrines and Sacraments in all once-Catholic churches. The ongoing goal of these usurpers of the once-Catholic Vatican is the total eradication of Catholicism globally by means of never-ending changes being made by the unbroken succession of post-1958 anti-popes “in the spirit of the (illicit) Second Vatican Council.” Meanwhile, the true, indestructible Catholic religion exists today in a state of eclipsed exile, maintained and practiced unchanged by few faithful souls worldwide.

Protestants will say they have seen Catholics on their knees adoring and praying to statues in their Churches.

They have not. They have seen Catholics kneeling at prayer, and perhaps kneeling before an image of Christ, or of Our Lady. But if one were to conclude that they were praying to the statues, that was not the fault of the Catholics. It was Protestant’s own fault in so far as he judged them according to their own erroneous preconceived ideas. Without bothering to ask for information, the Protestant guessed and guessed wrong. Before an image of Mary, Catholics may go on their knees and pray to God through the intercession of that Mother of Christ whom the statue represents. But no one has the right to accuse them of praying to the statue. Were the Protestant to kneel down (as unlikely for a Protestant to do) by his bedside at night for a last prayer, could he be regarded as adoring or praying to his mattress?

Protestants will say they have seen a Catholic kiss the feet of a statue of Christ.

If I kiss the photograph of my mother, am I honoring a piece of cardboard? Or is it a tribute of love and respect offered to my mother? A Catholic reverences images and statues only in so far as they remind him of God, of Christ, or of Our Lady and the Saints. Where a pagan adores and worships a thing of wood in itself, I kiss the cross not because it is a piece of wood, but because it stands for Christ and for His sufferings on my behalf. And I am sure that Our Lord looks down from heaven and says, “Bless the child; he at least appreciates my love for him.” The Protestant mistake in this issue is that they try to judge interior dispositions from exterior conduct—a dangerous policy always.

Protestants will say Catholics raise their hats when passing a Church;
why not when passing statues in a Catholic shop window?

The true Catholic who would raise his hat when passing a Catholic Church did so as an act of reverence for the Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist in the tabernacle on the altar.  But Christ’s Eucharistic Presence is not thus present in shops selling Catholic articles of devotion. But of course, the Protestants missed the point and took it for granted that Catholic men lift their hats because statues are present in the Church. Then they concluded that the Catholics ought to do so when they see statues in a shop window.

Protestants will ask if the use of statues is all right, why did the Catholic Church cut out the second commandment?

Protestants are asking an impossible question. They might as well ask me, “Why has Australia declared war on the U. S.?” No man could answer that question, because there is no answer to it. I could only reply, “Tell me first, are you under the impression that Australia has declared war on the U. S.?” And if the Protestant replied in the affirmative, I would proceed to correct the Protestant’s notions. Had the Protestant but asked me, “Did the Catholic Church cut out the second commandment?” a reply could have been given at once. The true Catholic Church certainly did not do so.

The Protestant Bible gives the second commandment as referring to images. But the Catholic Catechism gives it as referring to taking the name of God in vain, omitting the references to images.

Even the Protestant Bible does not give the second commandment as referring to images, though Protestants are usually erroneously taught that those words in the first commandment which refer to images constitute a second commandment.

The Roman Church omits the second commandment and then breaks
up the tenth into two, in order to avoid having only nine.

The reverse is the case. Protestants make the first commandment into two, and then, to escape having eleven, turn the ninth and tenth into one! The first commandment, as given in the Bible, is as follows: “I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt not have strange Gods before me. Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven
above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth. Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them. I am the Lord thy God, etc.” Exodus, XX., 1-6.

Protestant will say that the (true, pre-1958) Catholic Church is deceiving us. That is not what Catholics are taught. Some Protestants say they have a Catholic Catechism which gives the first commandment as “I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt not have strange gods before me.” They say the Catholic Church cut out the reference to images.

In the first place, if we wished to deceive our people, we would be very foolish to give them the full wording of the commandment in the Douay (NT in English: 1568 A.D.)-Rheims (OT in English;1609 A.D.) Version of the Bible, where they could detect the deliberate distortion! In the second place, in the Catechism we give the full substantial sense of the words I have quoted, but in a brief and summarized form which can be easily memorized.

Protestants also say Catholics deny that the (true) Catholic Church has changed the commandment

I do. Protestants saying that notice words only, paying little or no attention to the legal substance of those words. To simplify the wording whilst retaining the full sense is certainly not to change the commandment. If the Protestant says, “He is under an obligation not to give expression to his thoughts at the present moment,” I do not change the substance of what you say if I repeat to some small child, “He must not speak now.” The first commandment contains within its involved Hebrew amplification two essential points:  that we must acknowledge the true God, and that we must avoid false gods. Those two essential points are put briefly and simply in the Catechism for children who are more at home with short and easy sentences.

The commandments do not require such alteration.

The commandments do not. But the hopeless tangle most Protestants get into where this first commandment is concerned shows clearly that it needs to be stated precisely, without any substantial alteration. It is not a question of words, but it is a question of law, and Catholic children at least know and can clearly state the law.

Protestants say Catholics are violating the text of Scripture, and that the reference to images is a separate verse.

The numbering of the verses affords no argument. There was no numerical distinction of verses in the original Scriptures. Nor did God reveal such distinctions. All who are acquainted with the subject know that Scripture was divided into verses by men some centuries after Christ for greater convenience. The method of dividing the Commandments, however, is not of very great importance. The complaints of Protestants against the Catholic division are rather like that of some modern daughter who would want to spell her name SMYTH, and who complains that her mother spells it SMITH. But the mother knows best how it should be written, and the mother Church knows best how the commandments should be numbered, and only she has the authority from Christ to do so.

On MARY

Protestants accuse Catholics of having dogmas concerning their “goddess Mary.”

It would be mortal sin for any Catholic to regard Mary as a goddess. If a Catholic expressed such a belief to a valid, faithful Priest (none available today) in confession he would be refused absolution unless he promised to renounce such an absurd idea. If any Protestant wishes to attack true Catholic doctrine, he should at least find out what true Catholics do believe before he attempts to begin.

Protestants say that if Catholics call her Queen of Heaven, are they not doing her an injustice in refusing to her the title of goddess?

It would be the greatest possible injustice to regard her as a goddess. It is just to honor her even as God has honored her, which we Catholics do. Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords, and His mother certainly possesses queenly dignity, holding the highest place in Heaven next to her Divine Son. But that does not, and cannot change her finite and created human nature. To regard her as a goddess would be absurd.

Protestants say Catholics insist that she is the Mother of God!

Jesus Christ is true God and true man, and as He was born of Mary she is truly the Mother of God. The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity was born of her according to the humanity He derived from her. She is not a goddess, for God did not take His Divine Being from her. But she is the Mother of God since the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity was truly born of her in His human nature.

Protestants question how could Mary be the mother of the One who created her?

Mary owed her being, of course, to God, but this under the aspect of His eternal Nature. Subsequent to her creation that human nature was born of her which the Son of God had assumed to Himself. She was, therefore, the mother of Christ. But Christ was one Divine Person existing in two natures, one eternal and divine; the other temporal and human. Mary necessarily gave birth to a being with one Personality and that Divine, and she is
rightly called the Mother of God.

Protestants say the Catholic Church insists also upon the biologically impossible dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary herself

The dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary has nothing to do with biology. It does not mean that she was conceived miraculously in the physical sense. She was normally conceived and born of the parents, Joachim and Ann. But in her very conception, her soul was preserved immaculate in the sense that she inherited no stain of original sin, derived from our first parents. Thus, she was born without concupiscence (i. e., the proclivity of man’s fallen nature to sin as a result of Eve’s first sin.)

Protestants say the according to Catholic doctrine the Sacrament of Baptism destroys original sin. Then they ask if Mary did not need Baptism.

Mary did not need Baptism in so far as that Sacrament was instituted for the destruction of original sin. She received that Sacrament in order to participate in its other effects, and chiefly in order to receive the Christian character which that Sacrament impresses upon the soul.

Protestants say if Mary was sinless, she could not have needed redemption! Yet is not Christ the Redeemer of every child of Adam?

In so far as the sin of Adam involved the whole human race in condemnation, Mary needed redeeming. But there are two ways of redeeming. God could allow one to be born in sin and then purify the soul by subsequent application of the merits of Christ, or He could, by an anticipation of the merits of Christ, exempt a soul from any actual contraction of original sin. Thus He exempted Mary from any actual inheritance of the sin, and she owes her exemption to the anticipated merits of Christ. In other words, she was redeemed by Christ by prevention rather than by subsequent purification.

Is there any evidence in Scripture that Mary was indeed never actually subject to original sin?

Yes. In Gen. III., 15, God said to Satan, “I will put enmities between thee and the woman … thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.” The radical enmity between Satan and that second Eve, the Mother of Christ, forbids her having been under the dominion of Satan, as she would have been had she ever contracted original sin in actual fact In Lk. I., 28, we read how the Angel was sent by God to salute Mary with the words, “Hail, full of grace.”
Grace excludes sin, and had there been any sin at all in Mary she could not have been declared to be filled with grace. The Protestant version translates the phrase as “thou that hast been highly favored.” But the Greek certainly implies “completely filled with holiness.” However, complaints that our doctrine exempts Mary from the contracting of
original sin is becoming more and more rare in a world which is tending to deny original sin altogether, and which wishes to exempt everybody from it.

Protestants say St. Paul says that One died for all, and therefore all were dead. II.Cor. V., 14.

Such texts must be interpreted in the light of other passages where God reveals that Mary was never under the dominion of Satan. Mary is included in these words of St. Paul juridically in so far as she was born of Adam, but she was not allowed to be born in sin to be afterward’s redeemed. She was redeemed by prevention.

Protestants say St. John knew the Mother of Christ better than the others, yet he does not mention her Immaculate Conception!

In Rev. XII he shows clearly his knowledge of the deadly opposition between Mary and Satan. His Gospel he wrote to supplement the Synoptic accounts, and sufficient details had been given concerning Mary herself by St Luke. Omission to mention a fact in a given book is not proof that the writer did not know of it, and above all, if it does not fall within the scope of his work.

Did the early Church know anything of this doctrine?

St. Augustine (354-430), in the 4th century, wrote, “When it is a matter of sin we must except the holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom I will have no question raised, owing to the honor due to Our Lord.” St. Ephrem, also in the 4th century, taught very clearly the Immaculate Conception of Mary, likening her to Eve before the fall. The Oriental churches celebrated the feast of the Immaculate Conception as early as the 7th century. When Pope Pius IX. defined the Catholic doctrine in 1854 he gave, not a new truth to be added to Christian teaching, but merely defined that this doctrine was part of Christian teaching from the very beginning and that it is to be believed by all as part of Christian revelation.

Protestants say the infallible Church allowed St. Bernard to remain in ignorance of this doctrine.

Since the Church had not then given any infallible definition on the subject St. Bernard naturally could not be guided by it. St. Bernard believed that Mary was born free from sin, but he was puzzled as to the moment of her sanctification. He thought the probable explanation to be that she was conceived in sin, but purified as was St. John the Baptist prior to her actual birth. But he did not regard this opinion as part of his Faith. Meantime his error was immaterial prior to the final authentic decision of the infallible Church. St. Bernard believed all that God had taught and all that the Catholic Church had clearly set forth in her definitions prior to his time.

Protestants say St. Thomas Aquinas denied the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception

His opinion was probably much the same as that of St. Bernard. Before the definite decision of the Church was given theologians were free to discuss the matter. But the Church has since defined that the soul of Mary was never subject for a single moment to the stain of original sin. Both St. Bernard and St. Thomas would have been very glad to have had the assistance of such a definition.

Protestants say the Church withheld that honor from Mary for so long a time.

Since Mary always possessed that honor, the Church did not withhold it from her. The definition that Mary did possess such an honor was given by the Church when necessity demanded it. There was no real dispute about this matter in the early Church. In the middle ages, theologians attempted a deeper analysis of the privileges of Mary and, with no infallible decision of the Church to help them, some theologians arrived at defective
conclusions chiefly because of the defective psychology of the times. Some theologians held that Mary was preserved from original sin from the very moment of her conception; others said from the moment of her animation; yet others that she was purified at a moment subsequent both to her conception and to her animation. All admitted that she was sanctified prior to her actual birth. Now that the Church has spoken there is no doubt on the subject.

Protestants say Franciscans and Dominicans attacked each other bitterly over the Immaculate Conception

They indulged in much controversy; many controversies, but it was a free matter for discussion until the Church had given her definite ruling. The Catholic Church demands unity in doctrines which have been definitely decided, liberty in matters still undecided, and charity always. I admit that her ideals of charity have not always been maintained by her wayward children in theological controversies, but that is no fault of the Church.

Protestants say Philip III and Philip IV had asked Popes Paul V (r.1605-1621,) Gregory V (r. 996-999: first German Pope,) and Alexander VII (r. 1655-1667) to define the Immaculate Conception in order to stop the wrangling, and that the Popes replied that the doctrine was not definable as not being in Scripture

The Popes have never given such a decision. Paul V in 1617 forbade anyone to teach publicly that Mary was not immaculate. Gregory V in 1622 ordered the discussion to stop until the Church should have given an official decision. Alexander VII said that the Immaculate Conception of Mary was the common doctrine of the Church and that no one must deny it. None of these Popes gave a dogmatic definition, but rather a disciplinary ruling. Pope Pius IX (r.1846-1878: longest reigning Pope) defined the doctrine finally in 1854. Protestants say calling Mary a virgin, seeing that she was a mother, is the linking of the two terms that insult reason. The assertion that an omnipotent God is limited by the natural laws, which He Himself established, is an insult to reason. Jesus, the child of Mary, was conceived miraculously without the intervention of any human father and was born miraculously. Jesus did not pass through the birth canal but was miraculously in an instant made present to Mary without any birthing pain. [Read St. Bridget of Sweden’s account of the apparition of Mary to her during which she revealed the details of the pregnancy and birth.] Mary’s virginity was preserved throughout her entire life. I do not claim that any natural laws were responsible for this event. I claim that God was responsible, and the only way you can show that the doctrine is not reasonable is by proving that there is no God, or that He could not do what Catholic doctrine asserts.

Protestants question where it says in Scripture that Mary was ever a virgin.

Isaiah the prophet (VII., 14) certainly predicted a supernatural and extraordinary birth of the Messiah when he wrote, “The Lord Himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and his name shall be called Emmanuel.” St. Luke says, “The angel Gabriel was sent from God … to a virgin . . . and the virgin’s name was Mary.” When Mary was offered the dignity of becoming the mother of the Messiah, a privilege to which any Jewish maiden would ordinarily look forward with eager desire, she urged against the prospect the fact that she had no intention of motherhood. “How shall this be done, because I know not man.” She does not refer to the past, but by using the present tense indicates her present and persevering intention. The angel assured her that her child would be due to the miraculous operation of the Holy Spirit and that she would not be asked to forfeit the virginity she prized so highly, and then only did she consent. Luke I., 26-38. When Jesus was born Mary had none of the suffering usually associated with childbirth. The child was born miraculously, Mary herself in no way incapacitated. She herself attended to her own needs and those of the child. “She brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him up in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger.” Lk. II., 7.

Some Protestants suggest that Mary, in order to cloak her own sin, persuaded St. Joseph that her child was of the Holy Ghost.

No. That is absolutely false. Mary, saluted by an angel as full of grace, was the purest and holiest woman who ever lived on this earth. And, as a matter of fact, with sublime confidence in God, Mary refrained from explaining the event to St Joseph, leaving all to God. As St. Matthew tells us, “Behold the angel of the Lord appeared to him in his sleep, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is
conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.'” I., 20. What some Protestants suggest has been said by certain people merely because the Catholic Church honors Mary. Their hatred of the Catholic Church is so great that they dislike all she loves, and are willing to overlook any injury to Christ in fostering their hatred. Yet how can they hope to please Christ by
dishonoring His mother? Every true child bitterly resents disrespect to his mother, and Christ was the best son who ever lived. The more we honor Mary the more we honor Christ, for the honor we show her is because of Christ, If He were not the central figure, Mary would have been forgotten long ago.

Protestants ask that if Jesus was born of a virgin, why does He say nothing about it?

We do not know that He said nothing about it. The evangelists do not record any special utterances of Christ on this subject, but they do not pretend to record all that He ever said. St Luke tells us that when He met the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, “beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the Scriptures, the things that were concerning him.” XXIV., 27. There is every probability that He explained His advent into this world according to the prophecy of Isaiah. Meantime the Gospels do
record the fact that Mary was a virgin, and their words are as reliable in this as when they record the utterances of Christ.

Protestants say that, in proving the Davidic descent, Matthew and Luke’s giving of the genealogy of Joseph would be useless were not Joseph the father of Christ.

The genealogy of Joseph was that of Mary also. They were kinspeople of the same Davidic stock. The Jews as a rule, counted their generations only in the male line, and such a generation alone would appeal to the Jews for whom Matthew above all wrote. The same St. Matthew records that the angel told Joseph that the child was conceived miraculously by the Holy Ghost and not through the intervention of man. St. Luke in turn, left no doubt as to his mind on the subject when he carefully wrote that “Jesus himself was beginning about the age of thirty years; being (as it was supposed) the son of Joseph.” III., 23.

Protestants say that St. Matthew says that Joseph knew her not till she brought forth her first-born son. I., 25.

Nor did he. And the expression “till” in Hebrew usage has no necessary reference to the future. Thus in Gen. VIII., 7, we read that “the dove went forth from the ark and did not return till the waters dried up.” That expression does not suggest that it returned then. It did not return at all, having found resting places. Nor does the expression first-born child imply that there were other children afterward. Thus Exodus says, “Every first-born shall be sanctified unto God.” Parents had not to wait to see if other children were born before they could call the first their first-born! 781. Matt. XIII, 55-56, says, “His brethren James and Joseph, and Simon and Judes and His sisters, are they not all with us?” The Jewish expression “brothers and sisters of the Lord” in Scripture merely refers to a relationship in the same tribe or stock. Cousins often came under that title. In all nations, the word brother has a wide significance, as when one Mason will call another a brother-mason without suggesting that he was born of the same mother. The same St. Matthew speaks explicitly of “Mary, the mother of James and Joseph” in XXVII., 56, obviously alluding to a Mary who was not the mother of Jesus but who was married to Cleophas, the brother of Joseph.

Protestants point out Matt. XIII, 55-56 says, “His brethren James and Joseph, and Simon and Judes and His sisters, are they not all with us?” to cast aspersion upon the Ever-Virgin Mary.

This common Protestant error manifests their obstinate, contumacious ignorance and pertinacious malice towards the Mary, Mother of God throughout the last five centuries. Therefore, it bears repeating what has explained above, that the Jewish expression “brothers and sisters of the Lord” in Scripture merely refers to a relationship in the same tribe or stock. Cousins often came under that title. In all nations, the word brother has a
wide significance, as when one Mason will call another as a brother-mason without suggesting that he was born of the same mother. The same St. Matthew speaks explicitly of “Mary, the mother of James and Joseph” in XXVII., 56, obviously alluding to a Mary who was not the mother of Jesus but who was married to Cleophas, the brother of Joseph.

Protestants say there would not be two girls in the one family called Mary.

There certainly could be. And St. John, XIX., 25, writes that there stood by the cross of Jesus “His mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary of Cleophas.” But even here, Mary of Cleophas need not have been a sister in the first degree of blood relationship, but rather of the same lineage in more remote degrees of either consanguinity or affinity. Why are Protestants, who believe in Scripture, so convinced that Mary had other children?  They are not inspired by love for Christ, or for the mother of Christ, or for Scripture in their doctrine. Their main desire is to maintain a doctrine differing from that of the Catholic Church. But it is a position, which is rapidly going out of fashion. Learned Protestant scholars today deny as emphatically as any true Catholic that Mary had other children.  When Our Lord, dying on the cross, commended His mother to the care of St. John, He did so precisely because He was her only child, and He knew that Mary had no other children to care for her. The idea that Mary had other children is disrespectful to the Holy Spirit who claimed and sanctified her as His sanctuary. It insults Christ, who was the only begotten of His mother even as He was the only-begotten of His Heavenly Father. It insults Mary, who would have been guilty of great ingratitude to God if she threw away the gift of virginity, which God had so carefully preserved for her in the conception of Christ. It insults St. Joseph. God had told him by an angel to take Mary to wife, and that the child to be born of her had no earthly father but was the very Son of God. God merely gave St. Joseph the privilege of protecting her good name amongst the un-discerning Jews, and He chose a God-fearing man who would respect her. Knowing that her child was God Himself in human form, Joseph would at once regard her as on a plane far superior to that of any ordinary human being, and to him, as to us, the mere thought of her becoming a mother to merely earthly children would have seemed a sacrilege.

Protestants will say Catholics urge these privileges granted to Mary as the foundation of Catholic devotion to her, yet Christ said, “Rather blessed are they who hear the word of
God and keep it.”

Would anyone presume to say that Mary, whom the angel addressed as full of grace, did not hear the Word of God and keep it? Protestants have missed the sense of the passage to which they allude. In Luke XI, 27, a woman praised the one who had the honor to be the mother of Christ. Christ did not for a moment deny it, as you would like to believe. The sense of His words is simply, “Yes, she is blessed. But better to hear God’s word and keep it, and thus attain holiness, than to be My mother. You cannot all imitate Mary by being My mother; but you can do so by hearing God’s word and keeping it.” The thought that those who hear God’s word and keep it are rather blessed than Mary because she did not is simply absurd. “Henceforth,” declared Mary prophetically, “all generations shall call me blessed.” Lk. I, 48. And Elizabeth saluted her with the words, “Blessed art thou among women.” Lk. I, 42.

Protestants question how do Catholics prove Mary’s bodily assumption into Heaven?

No Christian could dispute the fact that Mary’s soul is in Heaven. Christ certainly did not suffer the soul of His own mother to be lost. The doctrine of her bodily assumption after her death is not contained in Scripture but is guaranteed by the first two of the three sources of Revelation being 1)Tradition protected by the Holy Ghost and by the 2)Teaching Authority of the Infallible Catholic Church, both of which served to start the
Church and both of which precede the existence of 3) the New Testament.
St. Augustine said he would not believe the Bible were it not for the fact that the Church declared it is true.  That Scripture omits to record a fact is no argument against it. Omission is not denial.  Meantime early traditions positively record the fact of the Assumption. And while the mortal remains of a St. Peter and of a St. Paul are jealously possessed and honored in Rome, no city or Christian center has ever claimed to possess the mortal remains of Our Lady. Certainly, relics of Our Lady would be regarded as having greater value than those of any Saint or Apostle, so nearly was she related to Christ. And it was most fitting that the body of Mary, who had been preserved even from the taint of original sin, should not have been allowed to corrupt. After all, it was just as easy for God to take her glorified body to Heaven at once as it will be to take the glorified bodies of all the saved at the last day. However, the definite sanction of this doctrine by the infallible Catholic Church is sufficient assurance of the fact. It is a de fide requirement since 1854 in order to be a true Catholic.

End of Part 1 of 2

Almost every aspect of our lives requires permission.
Our money is dispensed through centralized services like banks or Paypal.
Our electricity is controlled by centralized power companies.
Our internet connections are run through the most hated companies (if you’re in America, at least).
Our web pages are filtered by Google.
Our passwords are dependent upon the websites accepting them.
Most of the time, it all seems to be working well enough.

That is, until Paypal shuts down your ability to receive payments online, or your bank closes your account, or the Fed’s funny munny policies bludgeons your savings account into debt-fueled submission.

Or your domain is seized by a faceless bureaucracy…
Or Google ranks your website low because a few employees were triggered by a savior complex.

Or a few opaque algorithms are executed out of a need to lift dull corporate propaganda above your content because their biz model is flawed (and, worse, dishonest).

Or you spend years building a massive following on Youtube, helping the platform become the behemoth it currently is, only to be de-platformed and demonetized because you failed to abide by the wishy-washy guidelines.

Even Amazon has blacklisted self-published authors from using their services and without a word of explanation.

That’s their prerogative, sure.
But it’s a bad long-term strategy.

And all of these examples reveal the need for decentralization in an increasingly complex and polarized world.

The Dumbing Down of Righteousness
We aren’t naive enough to blame the companies themselves.

Centralized companies who use the hammer of censorship arbitrarily are kowtowing to mass-mindedness a mob mentality that can only possibly see the world in the lowest resolution possible.

The kind of mentality that arrogantly thinks the emotional center to which it desperately latches onto is the center of gravity around which everything else must revolve.

Anything that does not resonate in such a grandiose solar system, then, should be eradicated from existence as it is clearly against the laws of physics.

This is the problem with “movements” in general. They allow people who have plenty of personal demons to deal with (and don’t we all?) to project those demons onto their neighbors and instead attempt to slay them there.

And, worse, it eradicates any chance for individual ingenuity.

As Stephan Hoeller writes in his book, Freedom, the mass-minded individual “takes to collective and political movements wherein their already precarious and puny individuality dwindles to minuscule proportions. Imitation, dependence, lack of personal judgment, a lowering of the mental level are the inevitable accompaniment of the submerging of the individual in a mass movement.”

Psychologist Carl Jung once said that any movement, even if composed of wholly admirable persons, has the morality and intelligence of an unwieldy, stupid, violent animal and the bigger the movement, the more unavoidable its blindness and stupidity.

The Romans had a saying along this vein: Senatus bestia, senatores boni viri.
Translation: “The senate is a monster, but the senators are good men.”

The mob-mentality often demands that society “society,” according to the mob, being some self-existing entity, having a life and meaning apart from its members take care of all the dirty, slimy, uncomfortable stuff, smooth out the edges of life, and abdicate individual responsibility in every respect (im)possible.

Jung put it this way in Psychology and Alchemy:

“It is so much easier to preach the universal panacea to everybody else than to take it oneself and, as we all know, things are never so bad when everybody is in the same boat. No doubts can exist in the herd; the bigger the crowds the better the truth and the greater the catastrophe.”

Mass-mindedness is behind the great regression into infantilization.
You don’t have to look far to see examples of the mass-mind at work. Just this past week:

The UK has decided to ban any commercial which might portray “harmful gender stereotypes.”

(Translation: We decide what define men, women, and everything in between, not you, or the individuals who buy your products.)

Texas wants to make suggestive jokes illegal.
Simon Black of Sovereign Man reports the following.

“The Texas state legislature has passed two bills which would define ‘harassment’ on campus as ‘unwelcome, sex-based’ words. Hearing anything that makes you feel even slightly uncomfortable would be considered sexual harassment.

“The legislation allows university professors to be fired or imprisoned for failing to report any instance of harassment that falls under this loose definition.”

(Translation: Hey, kids. Don’t like the grade your professor gave you? Well, boy do I have a solution for you.]

Frogs and the “OK” symbol are symbols of “hate”

A leaked internal memo from Facebook has identified a cartoon frog and the “OK” hand symbol a bannable offense — as they are, of course, “hate symbols.”

What started as a joke by 14 year-olds on 4chan is now a punishable offense by our social media gods.
(Translation: Yes, sure, let’s trust Facebook with our financial lives.)

Emotionally Stunted Madness

Those who cheer the banning of “hate speech” (AKA, anything that makes one feel uncomfortable or the need to feel morally superior).

Are also the same types who would’ve in the past ironically enough, given our modern moral pulpit’s (apparent) distaste for religious dogma shunned people out of society for blasphemy, heresy, and apostasy.

Today’s secular church doesn’t care what you look like so long as you become a sounding board for its 3,333 ever-shifting commandments.
If not?

The digital mob will try to alienate you from society by doxxing you, harassing your employer or via public humiliation.

No matter how you shake it, this isn’t a very good long-term strategy, either.

There’s a long-held axiom of war that goes something like this:

The weapons I use on my enemy today will be used on me with equal or increased intensity tomorrow.

The thing I’m most excited about is the “blockchain revolution”:
The potential to make freedom a moot point. Not because I want people to be able to spew vile, emotionally-stunted ignorance, but rather because I want to live in a society that’s strong enough and emotionally mature enough to be able to handle such conflict in a responsible and adult-like way.

I look forward to a society where the individual owns his or her own emotional stuff and realizes the difference between psychological projection and actual conflict.

And furthermore understands how to resolve either of them in such a way that not only is the tension of the polar opposites resolved and not left to fester until it explodes.

But perhaps a transcendent third emerges out of the ashes of the conflict and a new way of seeing the world and the “other” is breathed into life.

Few are truly naive enough to think we can just sweep conflict under the rug (by banning it) and it’ll disappear. That if we close our eyes tightly enough the baddies will go away.

I don’t think we need less conflict. One of the main causes of polarization is people are opting out of conflict, opting for fake, superficial, posturing forms of conflict. I think we need more conflict. But the healthy stuff.
The raw, heavy, sweaty, inescapable, cathartic conflict.
Where truths come to light and are sat with and digested.

This will mean, of course, sometimes, things we don’t like could very well rise to the top.

But rather than repressing, suppressing, or depressing– responses that, psychologically speaking, only serve to turn ideas into fixations, obsessions, and ideological possessions (AKA demons) — the mature society would face it and see it for what it is: part and parcel of the human condition…

Society’s devils and demons are born by following the instinct to avoid and isolate the things that trouble us — by not facing them head-on.
Without facing them head-on, however, true progress is impossible.
We’re only left celebrating faux, superficial progress.

Progress that lacks any soul or wisdom.
Progress that lacks any wholeness, richness, or depth.

Only freedom — especially the freedom to bring the festering darkness into the light will offer us such an opportunity.

When freedom as an inalienable right becomes a moot point, that’s when the real work will begin. Until then, we’ll invest our time and energy in continuing to plant the seeds of it, for those of us willing to put the time and energy into it that is.

After watching anti-gunners spout off ridiculous suggestions as methods to reduce gun violence, it’s easy to think that you’ve finally heard it all and that it’s just a matter of getting it through those people’s thick heads why gun control never improves the situation.

But, then, something surprises you.

The Old Guard is Dying.
The old world is dying.

Talk to anyone from any political, cultural, “ist,” or “ism,” and, no matter where you sit, 99% of them will agree with you on one thing:

It’s time for a new paradigm.
A new way of relating, behaving, experiencing, and seeing the world and our place within it.

A paradigm that’s, perhaps, entirely unlike the past…

A Copernican Revolution 2.0.

Lest we dishonor the dead and destroy ourselves and everything that’s been built.

Or we suffer the destructive doldrums of endless revolutionary circling’s on the merry-go-round of history.

The Spork in the Road so to speak.

More than any time in history, we live in a time where it’s possible to break free from the failures of the past.

And yet, on the flip-side, more than any time in history, we also live in a time where it’s possible for us to sink deep into an inescapable tyrannical hell-scape…

One that blasts past the limits of even the wildest of imaginations of what it would mean to live a truly miserable existence.

The individual now possesses powerful tools to level the playing field, levers with which to move the entire world with the press of a button.

And the state also has access to such powerful tools and pushes them onto its “subjects” without consent, or, oftentimes, even our awareness.

Which is why…

It’s long been our beat that the real battle isn’t the old and tired tiffs between nations over geopolitical power.

Rather, the real battle, as Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg put it, is “a conflict between decentralization and centralization, between freedom and top down CONTROL.”

Specifically, it’s a conflict between voluntary choice and age-old force.

It’s a battle between sovereignty as individuals or (once again) the individual’s coerced subservience to the jackbooted institution, the gilded throne, or the impulsive, un-reflective stupidity of mob mentality.

The many advocates for top-down control by force, as “well-meaning” as they might be, have an emotional attachment to the Old Guard — a Stockholm Syndrome of sorts — seeing little by way of possibilities outside of the tiny box of arbitrary, elitist social engineering.

Thing is…

It’s not exactly a failure of those who refer to themselves as our leaders…

These are always in flux.

Rather, it’s a failure of individual self-awareness… and a desperate lack of recognition of our true nature as human beings.

You Have an Inherent Nature

All throughout history, the social engineers, central planners, and builders of societies have always assumed human beings don’t have a specific nature.

We are, they have always believed, infinitely plastic, amorphous blobs, clean slates to which not only can be molded… but should be molded to suit the grand plans of the new, hot, utopian vision.

Human beings have always been told they must devote their lives to the State, to God, or the “common good,” as defined by those who sit on the high and mighty perches of society.

In this distorted reality tunnel, the human being is little more than a sacrificial animal, born to serve the dictates of those who deem themselves superior to the unwashed masses…

A draft mule for those who look down the bridges of their noses at the human creatures and see only swarming throngs of vermin, packs of parasites, a collectively clustered cancer on the world.

This isn’t (entirely) because all central planners and their glazed-eyed zealots are (mis)guided by resentment, envy, pride, lust, greed, gluttony, and, more recently, Karl Marx.

But because we as individuals do not know ourselves enough to realize that we do, indeed, have a specific nature… and this nature requires a specific type of society for proper and healthy functioning.

We are not (entirely) unlike the rats in the Rat Park Experiment — put us in an environment which goes against our nature and all we want to do is consume cocaine all day.

We will adapt to the environment, sure.

But only enough to survive… hardly will you see us thrive.

Place us in an environment suited to our mental, physical, and spiritual needs, however, and — boom — the water bowl of cocaine will be there, but it will sit untouched, unnoticed, and unwanted.

The abject failure of the current order, big picture, is a failing not of the culture, government, economy, or biology — but of individual self-awareness.

We can’t demand for ourselves that which we have not taken the time to understand — which is, of course, ourselves.

If we did understand, after all, we would simply stop participating in those things which do us harm…

We would stop trodding down the unsustainable path with the rest of the lemmings… until there are no lemmings left for the blood-and-guts-stained pit beyond the cliff.

So, with little self-awareness as to who we truly are, we, too, assume we can be molded for the Perfect Society.

As we beg and plead, with our sticks and our placards and our witty slogans, for the busybodies to do what they must, at all costs, to make us whole.

If we are to have a happy, healthy society, it must be harmonious with the requirements of this inherent nature.

And, ultimately, if we can whittle this nature down to its barest of bones, the closest we can come to touching it is this:

To the extent that an individual is not free to live his or her life peacefully…

According to his or her own standards…

To make good, life-affirming, generative choices and be rewarded for them and then, as a result, to feel good and in harmony with life…

And to make bad, life-negating, degenerative choices and be punished for them and then, as a result, to suffer and fully feel at dis-ease with life…

To think, feel, intuit, sense, and act freely in accordance to one’s own individual nature, in pursuit of reaching one’s full potential and maturation…

And to fully own what one honestly earns by the sweat of one’s own brow…

Unless these things are not in place…

Try as one might to convince oneself otherwise…

Such an individual is still a slave.

But not a slave to a master… not a slave to some tyrant in some large building who signs his name willy-nilly on piles of papers.

Rather, a slave to one’s own ignorance about who he or she truly is as an individual with an inherent nature…

And how to live in accordance with that nature, so that the proverbial cocaine is forgotten because, of course, we have much better things to do — despite cocaine not only being permitted, but even freely given.

We Are Already Free

It’s no small feat to recognize that freedom is not something granted to the individual from somewhere up above.

But something for which it requires the individual to consciously accept responsibility.

And to own completely his or her own massive power as a free individual.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,” author Marianne Willliamson writes. “Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”

Because the REAL truth is…

We are already slaves being contained from freedom.

And nothing, not even tyranny, is more gut-wrenchingly horrifying than that.

THE STATEMENT BELOW BASICALLY SUMMARIZES AND REFLECTS THE RESULTS OF FORCED COOPERATION BY A ‘QUORUM’ OF SHAREHOLDERS IN 2018 FOR GUN MAKERS RUGER AND SMITH & WESSON BRANDS TO PRODUCE REPORTS ON VIOLENCE, RESEARCH AND MONITORING, THEREBY REFLECTING THE FOLLOWING RESULTS IN THEIR REPORT OF 2/18/2019.

The criminal misuse of firearms is a complex societal issue, resistant to solution through more laws or new technologies. We respectfully disagree with those who seek to blame firearms themselves – and by extension firearms manufacturers – for the violent actions of criminals. We believe that most Americans cherish their Second Amendment rights and desire better efforts to control criminal violence, not more laws that abridge the rights of law-abiding gun owners. Similarly, we do not believe that consumers are interested in buying expensive, technology-laden firearms with questionable durability and reliability.

*See other Peter Strzok blog on this piece of shit scumbag.

The FBI did not warn the Trump campaign that two members of its campaign were under FBI investigation when agents met with the campaign in August 2016 to warn it about national security threats.

Lindsey Graham Quotes Former FBI Agent Peter Strzok: ‘Trump Is A F**king Idiot’
Fox News’ Catherine Herridge reports that the FBI’s mid-August 2016 counterintelligence “defensive briefing” for the Trump campaign did not notify campaign officials that Mike Flynn and George Papadopoulos were under investigation. Fox News reports:

Strzok, who was later removed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigative team for sending anti-Trump texts, was a central coordinator for the FBI on the defensive briefing, which included multiple agencies. Three weeks earlier, Strzok opened an FBI counterintelligence investigation into campaign aide George Papadopoulos.

A source familiar with sensitive records documenting the August briefing told Fox News that Strzok was in a unique — and apparently conflicted — position. Strzok opened the FBI investigation into Russian outreach to Trump campaign aides, while at the same time he was supposed to be warning the Trump campaign about Russian activities.

During a segment on Fox News, Herridge noted that the time of the events is significant as days before the briefing Strzok and Page spoke about their “insurance policy” against then-candidate Donald Trump.

“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office – that there’s no way he gets elected – but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk,” Strzok texted FBI lawyer Lisa Page, whom he was having an affair with.”It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”

After that text message was released last summer, Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro wrote:
This looks an awful lot like motivation for launching an investigation into Trump in order to sink Trump as a hedge against Trump’s victory. The FBI’s investigation into Russian governmental interference in the election began in July 2016, just weeks before Strzok’s text message. And that means that there is now more of a smoking gun of FBI corruption against Trump than there is of Trump colluding with Russia.

Herridge further notes that just a couple of days before the infamous “insurance policy” text message, the two anti-Trump agents had the following text message exchange:

Page: [Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!

Strzok: No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.
When that text message was released last summer, Shapiro responded to it by writing:

This is an explicit admission that high-ranking actors in the FBI saw preventing Trump’s presidency as paramount. Barring some highly damning information demonstrating the full legitimacy of the Russia investigation, this text from Strzok to Page could and should completely destroy whatever faith that America still had in the legitimacy of the Russia investigation.

Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, told Fox News on Thursday:

There was a defensive briefing of candidate Trump on Aug. 17 of 2016. And I can tell you what he wasn’t told: He wasn’t warned about a Russia investigation that Peter Strzok had opened 18 days earlier.

Why would Peter Strzok, who would participate at Jim Comey’s direction in a defensive briefing designed to protect and warn a candidate, be the same person who is in fact at that time already investigating the candidate’s campaign? That shouldn’t happen. There should be answers to those questions.

DEFENSE:

TRAIN FOR THE POSSIBILITY;

NOT THE PROBABILITY.

ONCE AGAIN, NAVAL MARITIME LAW OVER ALL OF US, AND THE ‘CORPORATION OF AMERICA’ IS WHAT ALLOWS ONE TO BE PENALIZED OVER ‘POTENTIAL POSSIBILITIES’.

SIMPLE ENGLISH, COMMON LAW STATES THAT WHEN NO ONE IS AFFECTED, NO HARM CAUSED ANYONE, THEN THOUGHTS, INTENTIONS OR EVEN WRITTEN PLANS WHICH HAVE CHANGED OR AFFECTED NOTHING IN SOCIETY OR INDIVIDUALS, DO NOT MAKE A CRIME AND THEREFORE NO CRIME HAS BEEN COMMITTED. PERIOD.

BUT YET EVERYONE WILL NOW FOAM AT THE MOUTH AT THIS BECAUSE THEY HAVE BEEN CONDITIONED AND BRAINWASHED SINCE BIRTH THAT HUMANS ARE INCAPABLE OF LIVING WITHIN COMMON LAW.

HOW ABSOLUTELY PATHETIC THE HUMAN RACE HAS BECOME.

MANY ON SOCIAL MEDIA ARE UPSET WITH HOW CHILDREN ARE BEING RAISED THESE DAYS, EVENTUALLY LEADING TO POLICE ENCOUNTERS.

I AGREE THAT IS A PROBLEM. I COMPLETELY AGREE. WHAT I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH IS HOW MOLE HILLS ARE ESCALATED INTO MOUNTAINS BY SO-CALLED ‘TRAINED’ AND ‘PROFESSIONAL’ POLICE WHO SHOULD BE MORE INTELLIGENT AT THEIR JOBS. THAT’S WHAT I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH.

FBI AGENTS MUST HAVE A COLLEGE DEGREE; POLICE, ONLY A  HIGH SCHOOL DEGREE. THAT’S A PROBLEM FOR ME WITH PEOPLE WHO ARE GIVEN THAT MUCH AUTHORITY AND POWER OVER VIRTUALLY EVERYTHING.

FUNNY (not) HOW THE RESIDENCE AND PROPERTY OF GEORGE SOROS AND SURROUNDING AREA AT 136 CANTITOE STREET, KATONAH, NY HAS ABSOLUTELY NO DATA, INFORMATION OR SATELLITE STREET VIEW.

I WONDER HOW THAT WORKS THAT THEIR PROPERTIES ARE INCLUSIVE OF THIS PRIVACY WHILE YOURS AND MINE ARE NOT.

Trump is not a conservative. He sees a problem and understands it must be fixed. He doesn’t see the problem as liberal or conservative. He sees it only as a problem. That is a quality that should be admired, applauded and not condemned.

Viewing problems from a Liberal perspective has resulted in the creation of more problems, more entitlement programs, more victims, more government, more political correctness, and more attacks on the working class in all economic strata.

Viewing things according to the so-called Republican conservative perspective has brought continued spending and globalism to the detriment of American interests and well being, denial of what the real problems are with weak, ineffective and milquetoast actions. Leadership that amounts to Barney Fife Deputy Sheriff, appeasement oriented, afraid of its own shadow type of governing. In brief, it has brought liberal ideology with a pachyderm as a mascot juxtaposed to the ass of the Democrat Party.

Immigration isn’t a Republican problem. It isn’t a Liberal problem. It is a problem that threatens the very fabric and infrastructure of America. It demands a pragmatic approach. Not an approach that is intended to appease one group or another.

The impending collapse of the economy wasn’t a Liberal or Conservative problem. iI is an American problem. That said, until it is viewed as a problem that demands a common sense approach to resolution, it will never be fixed because the Democrats and Republicans know only one way to fix things and the longevity of their impracticality has proven to have no lasting effect. Successful businessmen like Donald Trump find ways to make things work. They do not promise to accommodate.

Trump uniquely understands that China’s manipulation of currency is not a Republican problem or a Democrat problem. It is a problem that threatens our financial stability and he understands the proper balance needed to fix it. Here again, successful businessmen, like Trump, who have weathered the changing tides of economic reality understand what is necessary to make business work, and they, unlike both sides of the political aisle, know that if something doesn’t work, you don’t continue trying to make it work hoping that at some point it will.

As a pragmatist, Donald Trump hasn’t made wild pie-in-the-sky promises of a cell phone in every pocket, free college tuition, and a $15 hour minimum wage for working the drive-through at Carl’s Hamburgers.

I would argue that America needs pragmatists because pragmatists see a problem and find ways to fix them. They do not see a problem and compound it by creating more problems.

You may not like Donald Trump, but I suspect that the reason some people do not like him is because:

(1) he is antithetical to the “good old boy” method of brokering backroom deals that fatten the coffers of politicians;

(2) they are unaccustomed to hearing a president speak who is unencumbered by the financial shackles of those who he owes vis-a-vis donations;

(3) he is someone who is free of idiomatic political ideology;

(4) he says what he is thinking, is unapologetic for his outspoken thoughts, speaks very straightforward using everyday language that can be understood by all (and is offensive to some who dislike him anyway) making him a great communicator, for the most part, does what he says he will do and;

(5) he is someone who understands that it takes more than hollow promises and political correctness to make America great again.

Listening to Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders talk about fixing America is like listening to two lunatics trying to “out crazy” one another. Jeb Bush, John Kasich and Marco Rubio are owned lock, stock, and barrel by the bankers, corporations, and big dollar donors funding their campaigns. Bush can deny it, but common sense tells anyone willing to face facts is that people don’t give tens of millions without expecting something in return.

We have had Democrats and Republican ideologues and what has it brought us? Are we better off today or worse off? Has it happened overnight or has it been a steady decline brought on by both parties?

I submit that a pragmatist is just what America needs right now. People are quick to confuse and despise confidence as arrogance, but that is common among those who have never accomplished anything in their lives (or politicians who never really solved a problem, because it’s better to still have ‘issues to be solved,’ so re-elect me to solve it, (which never
happens) and those who have always played it safe (again, all politicians) not willing to risk failure, rather than trying to achieve successes.

Donald Trump put his total financial empire at risk in running for president and certainly did not need or possibly even want the job; that says it all. He wants success for the U.S. and her citizens because he loves this country.