Friday, October 06, 2006
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
Dr. Drolesky addresses this topic at Christ or Chaos in an article titled "Forgotten Popes, Redefined Doctrines".
In this article he reproduces the Encyclical Une Fois Encore promulgated by Pope St. Pius X on June 1, 1907, to make his case.
He opens his argument with what he considers to have been his wayward youth when, in the early days of the Pontificate of John Paul II, he believed that this Pope would restore Christianity. What he describes is what we have seen at World Youth Days whereby the youth applaud and cheer but are not actually aware of what they are applauding.
I said to myself "he has a plan." In other words...I was projecting into the mind of the Holy Father my fondest hopes and desires. I was, shall we say, delusional and caught up with the cult of the personality of the pope. I mean, I sang "Stolat, Stolat, may you live a hundred years" outside of what was then called the Apostolic Delegation...on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C., on the evening of October 6, 1979.
Drolesky goes on from there to condemn the Novus Ordo as the enshrinment of Modernity, and admittedly this separates him from the Roman Catholic Church.
Quoting Reuters on the occasion of the return of John Paul II from Gemelli Hospital on February 12, 2005, Drolesky writes:
Pope John Paul acknowledged the potentially positive role of secularism in France as a way to balance power, on the 100th anniversary of the separation of church and state in the once largely Roman Catholic country.
"The principle of secularism, to which your country is very attached, if it is correctly understood, also belongs to the church's social doctrine," the ailing pope wrote in a lengthy letter to France's Catholic bishops dated on Friday. "It is a reminder of the necessity of a just separation of powers."
France has strictly separated the church from the state for the last 100 years to prevent discrimination and the bloody religious wars of prior centuries."
Today we see that France has lost her patrimony of Catholicism, that Muslims are moving in and finding the religious climate at least somewhat congenial, and that churches are empty. That is the current state of once Catholic France.
Finally he quotes a Vatican Information Service article which quoted a passage from Pope John Paul II's February 12, 2005, letter to Archbishop Jean-Pierre Richard of Bordeaux, France, President of the Conference of the Bishops of France:
The Pope closes by expressing his "confidence in the future for a good understanding between all components of Franch society. ...May no one be afraid of the religious path of people and special groups! If it is lived in respect for a healthy secularity, it can only be the source of dynamism and the promotion of man.
"The promotion of man"?? Is the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church supposed to be in the business of the "promotion of man"? How does God and Jesus Christ fit into this picture? Contrast that with the words of Pope St. Pius X from the above-cited encyclical:
- War has been declared against everything supernatural, because behind the supernatural stands God, and because it is God that they want to tear out of the mind and heart of man.(from Item #4)
- It is easy to see, Venerable Brethren and beloved sons, from what We have just recalled to you, that this law is an aggravation of the Law of Separation, and we can not therefore do otherwise than condemn it. (Item #16)
- what we have demanded and now demand for the Church...is respect for its hierarchy and inviolability of its property and liberty... (from Item #19)
The encyclical goes on to lay out the strategy of those opposed to the Church in words that sound hauntingly familiar to us in the present crisis in America:
- The pledge of this victory is your union first of all amongst yourselves, and secondly with this Apostolic See. This twofold union will make you invincible, and against it all efforts will break.(Item #6)
Here in America the sexual abuse scandal has precipitated a break with the hierarchy and distrust of the Holy Father. (Admittedly Drolesky works to further that break.) Not only that but the unity of Roman Catholics was shattered by the Second Vatican Council. Was this shattering the work of God or the work of the enemies of God?
Today we find a great deal of talk about peace and the condemnation of religious war. We also see that it appears religious war is being fomented in certain countries, most recently culminating with a threat to the Pope himself. Pius X wrote:
The Church, they said, is seeking to arouse religious war in France, and is summoning to her aid the violent persecution which has been the object of her prayers. What a strange accusation!...if there is a struggle on the question of religion in your beloved country, it is not because the Church was the first to unfurl the flag, but because war was declared against her.(Item #8)
As we watch churches and chancery buildings being sold to pay for the sexual abuse consequences, we read from Pius X:
- Her property, then, has been wrested from her; it was not she that abandoned it.(Item #11)
- The vague and ambiguous-wording of some of its articles places the end pursued by our enemies in a new light. Their object is, as we have already pointed out, the destruction of the Church and the dechristianization of France, but without people's attending to it or even noticing it. (Item #17)
Lastly Drolesky quotes from Pope Leo XIII's "A Review of his Pontificate":
Hence in proportion as society separates itself from the Church, which is an important element of its strength, by so much does it decline, or its woes are multiplied for the reason that they are separated whom God wished to join together.
In other words, the farther a society moves away from Christian values, the more degraded it becomes. We can see that in our own country as the debates over homosexual marriage rage, and as we observe the skyrocketing statistics for divorce and childbirth outside of wedlock. That the abortion statistics lend further proof goes without saying.
Were we led down the secular path by John Paul II? Was it his dually held beliefs that we could be Christian and also be secular, as the passages Drolesky quotes would seem to indicate, that has facilitated our decline--a decline that Benedict alludes to in his rejection of a culture of relativism?
Is the Masonic ideal of separation of Church and state, and of religious pluralism, the cause of this culture of relativism as Pope St. Pius X seems to indicate:
Fair-minded men, even though not of our faith, recognize that if there is a struggle on the question of religion in your beloved country, it is not because the Church was the first to unfurl the flag, but because war was declared against her. During the last twenty-five years she has had to undergo this warfare. That is the truth and the proof of it is seen in the declarations made and repeated over and over again in the Press, at meetings, at Masonic congresses, and even in Parliament, as well as in the attacks which have been progressively and systematically directed against her. These facts are undeniable, and no argument can ever make away with them. The Church then does not wish for war, and religious war least of all. To affirm the contrary is an outrageous calumny.(Item #8 - emphasis mine)
What is being presented to us in our dioceses under the auspicies of the Peace and Justice Commissions does not sound so very different from what was apparently taking place in France 100 years ago. All we have to do is look at France today to learn where it leads. Perhaps Drolesky is correct and the choice is between Christ and chaos. It is at least a proposition worth considering.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
