Still Running Off at the Keyboard

FROM THE SILLON TO PAX CHRISTI

One of the books I had time to finish during my August hiatus was FREEMASONRY AND THE VATICAN: A STRUGGLE FOR RECOGNITION by Vicomte Leon De Poncins, translated by Timothy Tindal-Robertson, copyright 1968. The book is interesting, but it was the Appendix that proved more fruitful.

When I left Marc Sangnier yesterday, he had abandoned the Sillon and moved on to other pursuits in the name of peace. He turns up again in 1933 on the history of Pax Christi website in a program called "Pax Christi in Regno Christi: Crusade of Prayer and Campaign for Peace (1945-1950)". There you can read:

For those who resisted against Hitler's Germany - and its deportees - were not only French. There were also many Germans among them, some of whom had participated in the "International Encounters of Bierville", organized for them since 1933 by Marc Sangnier, the founder of Sillon.

There is not much online about this conference. I did find the "6th International Democratic Congress for Peace, Bierville (France), Aug. 1926" in a Swathmore College website.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

In the Appendix of De Poncin's book is the tale of "Pax and Poland." It begins:

While not directly related to the subject of this book, the Report on Pax prepared by Cardinal Wyszynski is of such vital interest and seems to be so little known in the English-speaking world that this Appendix, describing the background of the movement and quoting in full the text of the Cardinal's Report on Pax, was drawn up by the translator with the agreement of the author. Moreover it will become clear to the reader that this document is not unrelated to the subject of the book as a whole, since it exposes a very determined attempt by the Soviet secret police to destroy the Church in Poland by seeking to penetrate and subvert it from within, frontal coercion and force having been completely defeated by the faith of the people. We have seen in earlier chapters in the present work how Freemasonry failed to impose itself on the nations by force and how, in consequence, and especially since the Second World War, it has resorted to subversion from within. ...

...it will be useful to give the reader the background to this organisation which was set up in Poland by the Soviet political police, to infiltrate the Church with Communist cells and impregnate it with Marxism. Originally a Polish party, Pax spread throughout the countries of Western Europe and took root principally in France. ... (emphasis mine - ct)

In 1946 [Boleslaw] Piasecki and a number of progressive Catholics set themselves up as a group which published a weekly Today and Tomorrow and talked vaguely about marching with the times and being realistic, by which they meant that any political regime in Poland would have to be acceptable to Moscow. The majority of Catholics viewed these moves with suspicion, and it came as no great surprise when in March 1947 the Polish Primate, the late Cardinal Hlond, stated that Piasecki's daily Universal Voice could not be considered representative of the Catholic community. ...

Cardinal Wyszynski, in a pastoral letter, warned all believers of the activities and aims of Piasecki's Pax and the progressive Catholics whom he described as "traitors to the Catholic Church". On 12th February, 1950, the Cardinal said that they were lacking in Catholic sense and learning, and yet they wanted to teach the bishops; furthermore, he rejected their claim to publish genuine Catholic works while at the same time attacking the Holy See, and he explicitly condemned them for assisting the Communist regime in the destruction of Catholic organisations. ...

Among their other activities, in Novembetr 1952 Piasecki and a number of his more prominent followers announced that they had joined the international Communist peace movement, and Pax sent a delegation to North Vietnam to persuade the large Catholic community there to give the Communist rulers of the country their unreserved collaboration.

At the height of the anti-clerical campaign Piasecki published his own ESSENTIAL PROBLEMS...

This book was placed on the Vatican Index... (pp 201-203)

George Weigel also calls Pax a communist organization that attempted to infiltrate the Church. In WITNESS TO HOPE he wrote:

Wojtyla came to St. Florian's at a time when the communist regime was stepping up its pressure on the Church. In 1947, the communists had formed the "Pax" movement to create a bloc of putatively Catholic opinion subservient to the state. In August 1949, the government issued a decree, allegedly to safeguard freedom of religion, but in fact to tighten its control over the Church. The following year Catholic schools, Catholic Action (a movement for social reform) and other Catholic organizations were declared illegal, and the state took over hundreds of Catholic educational and charitable institutions. (Weigel, p. 94)

The method devised to infiltrate the Church is described this way in De Poncins' book:

The technique is to act as a solvent and form cells of disunity among the faithful, but especially in the ranks of the priests and religious; split the bishops into two blocs, the "integralists" and the "progressives"; use a thousand pretexts to align the priests against their bishops; drive a subtle wedge into the masses by cleverly contrived distinctions between "reactionaries" and "progressives"; never attack the Church directly, but, "only for her own good" attack "her antiquated structure" and "the abuses which disfigure her." If necessary appear to be more Catholic than the Pope; skilfully undermine the Church by attracting into ecclesastical circles groups of "discontented" Catholics, so as to lure the former bit by bit "into the fertile climate of class struggle"; slowly and patiently work for this "adaptation" by introducing new forms into traditional ideas. The ambiguity of certain terms, such as "progressivism" and "integralism", "open" and "closed" attitudes, democracy and socialism, and so on, which have entirely different meanings in France and in Poland, help to create misunderstanding. (p. 209)

Does this sound like what has taken place here in America? How better to divide the faithful into warring camps than to rape their sons and then deny that the rape took place, while treating the victim's family like enemies of the Church? If this was an attempt at divide and conquer, the exposure of the duplicity by the press was an essential ingredient without which the Catholic laity would have remained united to their clergy and their bishops. We are now in a state of seige, opposed to the clergy and bishops as a result of distrust.

Infiltrate, divide, and conquer was Piasecki's plan for doing away with the Church; and the Church was the only thing that stood between him and a communist takeover in Poland. According to the publication "Slowo Powszechne", 2nd May, 1963:

The Encyclical Pacem in Terris was hailed noisily and "with deep satisfaction" as the "official consecration" and "coronation of the efforts" which Piasecki and his group had made for so long. (p. 212)

The author continues:

According to Pax, thanks to Pope John XXIII, the "tridentine era" in the history of the Church seems definitely over and a new epoch is beginning, "more open and more tolerant, ready for compromises". (p. 212)

Why did an encyclical by Pope John XXIII work to promote the ends of the communists in Poland?

The name--Pax--immediately brought to mind Pax Christi. Could it be possible that there is a relationship? I turned to the Pax Christi website where the following can be read:

Pax Christi emphasised the value of international exchanges with foreign students visiting London and with young people staying in its summer hostels. Joint retreats and conferences were held with PAX, an older Catholic peace group, and in 1971 a single Catholic peace movement was created when Pax and Pax Christi merged.

Pax--the Communist organization formed in Poland for the purpose of subverting the Church--merged with the Roman Catholic organization Pax Christi for the purpose of promoting the peace movement. (Pax Christi promotes World Youth Day on this website.) Incredibly the previous Pax Christi website linked features a symbol of the word "Peace" superimposed on a rainbow background. A rainbow flag? The symbol of the homosexual network?

Another Pax Christi website confirms the Pax association:

Pax Christi Warsaw is an associate group of Pax Christi International - a Catholic peace movement established in France in 1945.

The June 1998 Pax Christi International Newsletter NR53 obituary notice for Fr. Bernard Lelande, their international clergy delegate, provides this statement about Fr. Lelande's background:

Father Lalande was born in France on 4 October 1910 into a family where two strands of post First World War Catholicism were represented. His father, a member of Sillon (Furrow) a Christian Democratic organisation, became a local representative for the Parti Democrate Populaire (Popular Democratic Party), whereas his mother was more influenced by the ideas of Mauras, supporting the principles of Catholic nationalism until 1926. However, Fr. Lalande always maintained that the (sic) felt closer to his father's views.

The Sillon is very much involved with the Lay Apostolate Movements as their website indicates, and has re-emerged as a result of Vatican II. The "three broad generations" of the sillon are outlined at the website:

a) The 1848 generation encompassing the progressive teachings of Lamennais, Ozanam, and Lacondaire.

b) The Sillon generation grounded in the non-scholastic new philosophy disseminated through study circles among students and young workers.

c) The specialised Catholic Action generation identified above all with Cardijn and the G8 movements, that use the methodology of "see, judge, act".

Is it possible that Catholic Action morphed into Call to Action? There is some evidence that it may have, but it would take more digging.

The website also notes that Lammenais was excommunicated and Ozanam was marginalised at the end of his life. It was Gaudium et Spes that reinvigorated the Sillon. Do they intend to dispense with clergy or reduce clergy to the level of the laity as they once did according to Pope Pius X's condemnation? The clergy have a less essential role in Pentecostalism which depends primarily on prophecy. Think about it. Once the priesthood is eliminated, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass will cease!

"If my request is not heeded, Russia will spread her errors around the world." That's a paraphrase, but you know the source.

Do we have peace now that the consecration is supposed to have been accomplished?

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!