Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide:1 corinth 9:16.—Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel. It appears from this that strict injunctions were given to the Apostles (S. Matt. xxviii. 19) to preach the Gospel and teach all nations, insomuch that, if they had neglected to do so, they would have sinned mortally. For on those that neglect this their duty he pronounces the woe of the wrath of God and of hell. By the same injunctions all pasters, Bishops, and Archbishops are now bound. Cf. chap. i. 17.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I offer a cordial welcome to all of you, and in a special way to the representatives of the Conference of European Rabbis, the Rabbinical Council of America, and the Commission of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel in dialogue with the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews. I thank Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt for his kind greeting in your name.
In our shared journey, by the graciousness of the Most High, we are presently experiencing a fruitful moment of dialogue. This is reflected in the Statement Between Jerusalem and Rome which you have issued and which you present to me today. This document pays particular tribute to the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration Nostra Aetate, whose fourth chapter represents the “Magna Charta” of our dialogue with the Jewish world. Indeed, the ongoing implementation of the Council’s Declaration has enabled our relations to become increasingly friendly and fraternal. Nostra Aetate noted that the origins of the Christian faith are to be found, in accordance with the divine mystery of salvation, in the Patriarchs, in Moses and in the Prophets. It also stated that, given the great spiritual heritage we hold in common, every effort must be made to foster reciprocal knowledge and respect, above all through biblical studies and fraternal discussions (cf. No. 4). Consequently, in recent decades, we have been able to draw closer to one another and to engage in an effective and fruitful dialogue. We have grown in mutual understanding and deepened our bonds of friendship.
The Statement Between Jerusalem and Rome does not hide, however, the theological differences that exist between our faith traditions. All the same, it expresses a firm resolve to collaborate more closely, now and in the future. Your document is addressed to Catholics, speaking of them as “partners, close allies, friends and brothers in our mutual quest for a better world blessed with peace, social justice and security”. It goes on to say that “despite profound theological differences, Catholics and Jews share common beliefs” and also “the affirmation that religions must use moral behavior and religious education - not war, coercion or social pressure – to influence and inspire”. This is most important: may the Eternal One bless and enlighten our cooperation, so that together we can accept and carry out ever better his plans, “plans for welfare and not for evil”, for “a future and a hope” (Jer 29:11).
On the occasion of your welcome visit, I would like to express to you and to your communities beforehand my best wishes for the Jewish New Year which will begin in a few weeks. Shanah tovah! Once more I thank you for coming and I ask you to remember me in your prayers. Finally, I would invoke upon you, and upon all of us, the blessing of the Most High for the shared journey of friendship and trust that lies before us. In his mercy, may the Almighty bestow his peace upon us and upon the entire world. Shalom alechem!
We at ABE Ministry had reduced that 502 word time wasting speech to an economical 3 words; BLAH, BLAH, BLAH
We at ABE Ministry had reduced that 502 word time wasting speech to an economical 3 words; BLAH, BLAH, BLAH
Daniel 7:V 13, 14. "And behold, there came One with the clouds of heaven like unto the Son of man."
He who was described in the dream of Nebuchadnezzar as a rock cut without hands, which also grew to be a large mountain, and which smashed the earthenware, the iron, the bronze, the silver, and the gold is now introduced as the very person of the Son of man, so as to indicate in the case of the Son of God how He took upon Himself human flesh; according to the statement which we read in the Acts of the Apostles: "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up towards heaven? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him going into heaven" (Acts 1:11).
". . .And He arrived unto the Ancient of days, and they brought Him before His presence, and He gave unto Him authority and honor and royal power."
All that is said here concerning His being brought before Almighty God and receiving authority and honor and royal power is to be understood in the light of the Apostle's statement: "Who, although He was in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and was found in His condition to be as a man: He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross" (Phil. 2:6-8). And if the sect of the Arians were willing to give heed to all this Scripture with a reverent mind, they would never direct against the Son of God the calumny that He is not on an equality with God.
".. .And He is the one whom all the peoples, tribes, and language-groups shall serve. His authority is an eternal authority which shall not be removed, and His kingdom shall be one that shall never be destroyed... ."
Let Porphyry answer the query of whom out of all mankind this language might apply to, or who this person might be who was so powerful as to break and smash to pieces the little horn, whom he interprets to be Antiochus? If he replies that the princes of Antiochus were defeated by Judas Maccabaeus, then he must explain how Judas could be said to come with the clouds of heaven like unto the Son of man, and to be brought unto the Ancient of days, and how it could be said that authority and royal power was bestowed upon him, and that all (671) peoples and tribes and language-groups served him, and that his power is eternal and not terminated by any conclusion (Saint Jerome)
The converts from Judaism, The Lemann brothers stated: Then, we said to ourselves; If the Messiah has already come, it is Jesus Christ, and we must become Christians. If he has not yet come, we must nevertheless no longer remain Jews, because the time of the promise has passed and our books have lied. (The Eternal City Rome & the Origins of Catholic Christianity, Taylor R. Marshall)
And, so, why do modern Popes not teach the truth to the Messias-Deniers? Because we are heading into the end times in which a great apostasy is happening and a time in which modern Popes are far more concerned with anthropocentrism rather than salvation and sanctification, a political friendship with the Jews rather than striving to save their eternal souls.
See this section from this online book....
Thus the Jewish people were prevented by maledictions from studying the question of the Messiah. If, in spite of the anathemas of the Rabbins, they ventured to search the Bible, they were liable to be bewildered by the changes made in the prophecies. But, over and above these difficulties, there was the fact that the Talmud was pushed upon them and the Bible treated as indifferent. For centuries the programme of studies in the Jewish schools was formulated as follows: “The Bible is to be compared to water: the Mischna to wine and the Ghemara to aromatic liquor. One who studies the Bible does something indifferent; one who studies the Mischna deserves a recompense; one who studies the Ghemara performs the most meritorious of all actions.”[22]
The Fathers Lémann sum up and conclude with the words: “Since this leaden book presses down on Israel, there is no longer question of the Messias amongst the Jews . . . The Bible was too clear, the seventy weeks of Daniel were too clear; the twenty-second Psalm of David was too clear; the fifty third Chapter of Isaias was too clear. Your Rabbins, O Israelites, have extinguished all these lights with the Talmud.”[23]
The Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1789, was in reality, as we have seen in Chapter II, a declaration of war on membership of Christ and on the supernatural structure of society. It emanated from the anti-supernatural Masonic association and paved the way for the admission of the Jews as full citizens into French society and later into European society. Through the combined action of these two anti-supernatural forces on governments, Christ the King has been banished from social life and from schools, with the result that millions have been deprived of the Faith. It is certainly no exaggeration to speak of the apostasy of the once Christian nations, in spite of the splendid fidelity of minorities. The well organised naturalism of the Jewish nation, guiding Masonic naturalism and collaborating with it, has successfully worked for the elimination of the rule of Christ the King.[24] But the continued efforts of the Jews against the divine plan for order have also greatly accelerated the inevitable trend towards materialism of what has remained of the Jewish religion. That decay was morally inevitable in any case, because of the opposition of the Jewish nation to our divine Lord Jesus Christ, the unique source of that life through which alone the ordered tendency of individuals and nations can be maintained. I have elaborated this last point at some length in my book, The Mystical Body of Christ and the Reorganisation of Society (pp. 155-16)), and I intend to return to it in the present work at the beginning of the next chapter. In this section about the messianism of the Jewish nation, it will be sufficient to cite a few phrases from the Fathers Lémann and then add some remarks about the developments since the publication of La Question du Messie in 1869.
The Fathers Lémann quote some Jewish writers who speak of the “true Redeemer as not being a person but Israel transformed into a beacon for the nations,”[25] and of “Israel personified as the People-Messias in the whole of Isaias, Chapter LIII.”[26] They add, however, that the attitude of the vast majority of the Jews is one of materialistic indifference. “It is the heart-breaking renewal on a grand scale of the scene in the desert when, having grown weary of waiting for the return of Moses . . . they feasted and danced around the golden calf.”[27] The Zionist and Communist movements have accentuated those attitudes since the publication of La Question du Messie.
A letter from Dr. Herzog, Chief Rabbi of Palestine, was published in the Irish Independent (Dublin) of January 6, 1948. In that letter, the Chief Rabbi, referring to the establishment of the new state of Israel, said: “Eventually, it will lead to the inauguration of the true union of the nations, through which will be fulfilled the eternal message to mankind of our immortal prophets.”[28] That same ideal had been already set forth in more outspoken language by The Jewish World of February, 9, 1883: “The great ideal of Judaism is . . . that the whole world shall be imbued with Jewish teaching, and that in a Universal Brotherhood of Nations—a greater Judaism in fact—all the separate races and religions shall disappear.” A sad commentary on the fulfilment of the “eternal message to mankind of the immortal prophets” is that the Declaration of Independence of the Zionist State, issued on the day it was proclaimed, contains no mention of God. So we read in an article in The Canadian Intelligence Service, April, 1952, quoting The Christian Century. The article further states that “the majority of Palestine’s Zionists, including most of the leaders of the new Israel, are aggressively secularist. ‘Zion without God has become Israel without God.’ It is an ominous portent.” The triumph of Marxism is doing its deadly work of corrosion and perversion.
Now, in his Apostolic Letter of 19 March 1902, Pope Leo XIII spoke of the so-called Reformation of the 16th century as breaking “the precious link of the ancient unity of faith and authority which . . . united all nations under one staff and one shepherd.” According to Rabbi Herzog, therefore, that union, brought about through the acceptance of the Mystical Body of Christ, was not the true union. The true union desired by God and foretold by the prophets is, according to him, yet to be brought about by the Jewish nation, working against Christ the King.
Marxist Communism has not only accentuated the materialism deplored by the Fathers Lémann amongst the Jews of their day, but has galvanised it into action by the hope of world conquest. For Marx, man is purely material, but as matter, man is God. Marx, like his friend, Heinrich Heine, was a pantheist. “This descendant of a line of Rabbins and doctors,” writes the Jewish historian, B. Lazare, “inherited all the logical vigour of his ancestors. He was a clear and lucid Talmudist . . . a Talmudist who studied sociology and applied his natural aptitudes for exegesis to the criticism of Political Economy. He was full of that old Hebrew materialism which ever dreams of a paradise on earth and always rejects the far distant and problematical hope of a garden of Eden after death. But he was not merely a logician, he was also a revolutionary, a rebel and a bitter controversialist.”[29]
Yes! Marx was a revolutionary and no ordinary one, for he combined Jewish messianism with the pantheistic philosophy of Hegel. For Hegel there is no objective Personal God, as we Catholics and all sane thinkers know and believe. God is only human thought evolving or becoming. Marx, in contradiction with Hegel, but in agreement with the materialism of Feuerbach, held that spirit and thought have evolved out of matter. Thought is an attribute of material being, of the human body and of the human head. The degree of mastery over the forces of nature, that is, the stage of development of the production of wealth, determines the perfection of a civilisation. The proletariat class, which produces the material goods on which human society lives, is a messianic class destined by its rule to bring about a new era for the world. But both the proletariat in general and the Russian people in particular are only means for the realisation of the messianic dreams of Marx’s own people. Hegel’s pantheism swept away any traces of Jewish deism which Marx had retained and left him only his pride in his race and the certitude that the sovereign thought which was destined to rule the world was that of his race.[30]
One of Marx’s correspondents, Baruch Levy, formulated the Marxian thesis in striking fashion: “The Jewish people taken collectively shall be its own Messias. Their rule over the universe shall be obtained by welding together the other races, thanks to the suppression of frontiers and monarchies, which form the bulwark of national peculiarities. Thus shall be established a Universal Republic . . . In this new organisation of humanity, the sons of Israel, now scattered over the whole surface of the globe . . . shall everywhere become the ruling element without opposition. This will be especially easy if they succeed in imposing on the masses of the working classes the guidance of some of their number. The governments of the nations forming the Universal or World Republic shall all thus pass, without any effort, into Jewish hands, thanks to the victory of the proletariat. Private property can then be suppressed by the Jewish rulers who will be in charge of public affairs everywhere. Thus shall the promise of the Talmud be fulfilled, that, when the Messianic epoch shall have arrived, the Jews will control the wealth of all the nations of the earth.”[31]
Thus the Zionist ideal is completely opposed to that of Abraham and the Patriarchs. “The just of the Old Law,” writes the ex-Rabbin Drach,“did not attribute to the Messiah they expected, as does the modem synagogue, the mission of restoring our nation to Palestine, and bestowing upon it glory and the goods of this world, but that of winning our spiritual salvation, as in point of fact our Lord Jesus Christ has done.”[32] In a note on page 98 of the same work, the learned ex-Rabbin depicts the ideal of the modern synagogue as follows: “The Messiah, whose coming the Jews obstinately expect, in spite of the fact that he on his side obstinately refuses to appear, is to be a great conqueror who will reduce all the nations of the world to the condition of slaves of the Jews. The latter are destined to return to the Holy Land in triumph, laden with the riches taken from the non-Jews. Jerusalem is to have a new temple.” This is the very ideal depicted by Karl Marx’s correspondent.
In spite, however, of this complete change to materialistic naturalism, the Jewish nation is destined one day to return to the true supernatural ideal held up before it by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for “they are most dear for the sake of the fathers,”[33] and of them “is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all things, God blessed for ever, Amen.”[34]
CERTITUDE OF THE CONVERSION OF THE JEWISH NATION
“There is well known tradition cherished by the faithful,” writes St. Augustine, “that, in the last days before the judgement, the great and admirable Prophet Elias is to explain the law to the Jews and to lead them to the acceptance of the True Messias, Our Christ.”[35]
The question of the conversion of the Jews is splendidly treated by Father Augustine Lémann in his work, Histoire Complète de l’Idée Messianique.[36] The future conversion of the Jewish people, he says, is certain. The divine promises to that effect are numerous. He begins by the prophecy of Osee, III, 4, 5., and as he gives it along with the commentary of St. Augustine, I have thought it well to translate the whole passage:“These carnal Israelites,” writes the great Doctor of Hippo, “who today refuse to believe in Jesus Christ, will one day believe in Him, that is, their descendants will do so, for Osee foretells their conversion in the following terms: ‘The children of Israel shall sit many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without altar, and without ephod and without theraphim.’[37] Who is there who does not see in this a portrait of the present state of the Jewish people? But listen to what the prophet adds: ‘And after this the children of Israel shall return, and shall seek the Lord their God, and David their king: and they shall fear the Lord, and His goodness in the last days.’[38] Nothing can be clearer than this prophecy, in which David evidently stands for Jesus Christ. Christ, says the Apostle, is born of the line of David according to the flesh.”
To this luminous interpretation of the prophecy of Osee concerning the conversion of Israel, Father Lémann adds the testimony of Pope Pius IX contained in a letter addressed to his brother and himself, on the 14th of February, 1877. “Because,” wrote the holy Pontiff, “according to the prophecy of Osee, the sons of Israel have remained for a long time without king and without prince, without sacrifice and without altar, may that other word of the same prophet soon begin to be accomplished: And after this the children of Israel shall return and shall seek the Lord their God and David their king!”
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THE APOSTASY OF THE NON-JEWISH NATIONS AND THE CONVERSION OF THE JEWS
There is a tradition in the Church that the Jewish people will be converted when the Nations shall have ceased to be Catholic by falling into apostasy. The two Fathers Lémann have treated of the question at some length in their joint work, La Question du Messie et le Concile du Vatican. They have done so in the form of a commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, XI, 20, 21, 22, 25, 30, 31. It will be, interesting for my readers to have a brief outline of their teaching.
St. Paul warns the non-Jews not to be boastful but to fear lest a fate similar to that of the Jews befall them: “Be not high-minded, but fear. For if God hath not spared the natural branches, fear lest perhaps he also spare not thee.” A little further on he continues: “For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, of this mystery (lest you should be wise in your own conceits) . . . For as you also in times past did not believe God, but now have obtained mercy, through their unbelief; so these also now have not believed, for your mercy, that they also may obtain mercy.” The Fathers Lémann quote with approval the statement of a learned commentator to the effect that it would have been quite natural for St. Paul to have added, after the last words cited: “When you shall have fallen into incredulity.”[53] The tenderness of St. Paul for the Gentiles, however, prevented him from adding that phrase, but several Fathers of the Church have expressed the thought in their commentaries.
“Israel’s failure to correspond,” says Origen, “has been the occasion of the calling of the Gentiles. We have taken their place and thus have become the true Kingdom of Juda. But our last times will resemble those of the Jews because of our sins, in fact they will be worse.”[54] “From the sin of the Jews,” writes St. Jerome, “has come the salvation of nations, and from the incredulity of the nations the knowledge of the Truth will again come to Israel. These two truths are in St. Paul.”[55]“St. Paul,” writes in his turn St. John Chrysostom, “explains divinely the conduct of God with regard to men . . . He says that the Gentiles have been called by God, but because, little by little, they will show themselves unmindful of His favours, God will recall the Jews a second time.”[56] The Fathers Lémann cite also the Commentary of St. Augustine on Psalm VII, and finally, the words of the great French orator, Bossuet: “Have we not reason to tremble on seeing how severely God has punished the Jews for so many centuries, since St. Paul warns us on the part of God that our ingratitude will bring upon us a similar punishment?”[57]
God’s aim, however, is not punishment but mercy, and when he will have called back the Jews, He will also recall the non-Jewish nations, utilising the missionary zeal of the repentant Jews for that purpose.[58] “For God hath concluded all in unbelief, that he may have mercy on all. 0 the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God.”[59] Seeing that the apostasy of the nations from Christ the King has been very largely their work and that of their satellites, the Freemasons, the Jews will be heartbroken, and will put their splendid natural qualities at the service of divine love, in order to undo the evil of the past and to draw the whole world into the unity of the Mystical Body of Christ. “There are two outstanding qualities in our national character,” write the Fathers Lémann, “vivacity of sentiment and tenacity of will. Liveliness of sentiment we certainly have, for our nation never hates or loves anything in weak or feeble fashion; in love as in hatred it goes to extremes. And tenacity of will we have also; for forty centuries we are awaiting Him whom we are meant to love. Now when divine grace shall have taken hold of this vivacity and of this tenacity, when our eyes shall be opened, when as a body we shall see that He whom we have been expecting so long has already come, and that He has been waiting for us for twenty centuries with outstretched arms: when we shall see as clear as noonday that we have had the misfortune to crucify Him . . . Then, there will be amongst us, as it were, an explosion of love . . . And we shall arise and begin all over again our journeys through the world. Where the Wandering Jew has passed, the Jew become Apostle will pass once more . . . The grief of our repentance will not be hidden in the silence of a confessional, but will show itself in the light of day before all the peoples of the earth, like our denial at noon on Good Friday. The prophet Zacharias saw this outburst of grief: ‘And I will pour out upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of prayer; and they shall look upon me, whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for an only son, and they shall grieve over him, as the manner is to grieve for the death of the first-born.’”[60]
In order that the repentant Jewish nation may work for the conversion of the peoples of the Orient and the return of the apostate nations of the West to Christ the King, there must be a certain interval between the conversion of the Jewish nation and the end of she world. Some interpret the words of St. Paul: “what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead?” in the sense that the General Resurrection and the Last Judgment will follow the conversion of the Jews immediately.[61] “As the reprobation of the Jews,” writes Père Lagrange, O.P., “was the occasion of the reconciliation of the world, their conversion will be as it were, the signal for the consummation of the world and the advent of a new one. It must, however, be admitted that the expressions employed are not very precise and that one could not establish a definite relation of time between the conversion of the Jews and the General Resurrection from the dead, in other words, affirm that the Last Judgment will follow closely on the conversion of the Jews.”[62]
When the Fathers Lémann were petitioning the Bishops, assembled in Rome for the Vatican Council, for their signatures to the Postulatum Pro Hebræis, many of their Lordships smilingly put the objection that “to work for the conversion of the Jews was to bring on the end of the world.”
The two Fathers gave several answers to this objection, and their arguments seem to go far towards proving that there will be a considerable lapse of time between the conversion of the Jewish nation and the Last Judgment.[63] Two things are certain. The first is that, however short the time, the newly-converted Jews will not remain idle. The second is that if the Jews as a body sincerely accepted the true Messias and put all that restless energy and unshakeable tenacity into the furtherance of the Kingship of Christ, which they now display against His rule, the conversion of the world would be rapidly advanced. Just picture for a moment, Jewish influence in the Press of the world directed towards featuring the truth about Lourdes and Fatima and the horror of the rejection of God and our divine Lord in Russia! Just think of Jewish influence on the Cinema, instead of being directed towards the elimination of the Supernatural life by the production of irksomeness with all moral restraints, being canalised into showing the solution of human unrest by the loving acceptance of membership of Jesus!
Let us illustrate this by the example of what one wholehearted Jewish convert achieved for Christ the King.
AN OUTSTANDING JEWISH CONVERT
One of the most remarkable conversions of modem times, in spite of a strong Talmudic formation, was that of the Venerable Francis Mary Paul Libermann, C.S.Sp., Founder of the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and first Superior General of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost and of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, after the union of the two Congregations in 1848. In the life of the Venerable servant of God by the Rev. Prosper Goepfert, C.S.Sp., there is an account, from Father Libermann’s own conversations, of the Talmudic formation he received from his father, a distinguished rabbin. “According to the teaching of the Talmud,” writes Father Goepfert, “the possessions of the Goim should be regarded as a desert and as the sand of the sea, of which the first possessor is the real proprietor. The Talmud expressly forbids the Jew to save a Christian from death, to restore to him his lost property or to have pity on him. The rabbins have concluded that, when dealing with a Christian, the Jew is at liberty to make a mistake for his own advantage, and that it is honest to deprive a Christian of any sum of money. These pernicious doctrines formed a part of the instructions which the rabbin of Saverne inculcated on the minds of his children, who naturally received them as the purest expressions of truth . . . One day, Jacob (later Father Libermann), was sent to the house of a neighbouring Christian woman, to change a piece of money. Imagining that he was doing an excellent deed, he dexterously took away a penny from the infidel Goim. He returned, quite proud of his feat, which gained for him the applause of his family, especially of his father, who saw in this youthful exploit an indication of a brilliant future.”[64]
After his conversion—he was baptized on the 24th December, 1826—Francis Mary Paul Libermann became the founder of a religious congregation having as its special object to make known the truth of our Lord’s supernatural mission to the most abandoned of the Goim, and the heroicity of his charity, justice and humility was solemnly proclaimed by the Catholic Church in 1910.[65] Father Libermann’s wonderful humility was based on the recognition of the special sorrow inflicted on the Heart of Jesus by the pride and obduracy of the Jewish nation. One can see this in his whole life. It is worthy of note that one who had himself suffered terribly because of that pride and obduracy, the distinguished ex-Rabbin Drach, took an active part in the instruction of young Jacob Libermann.
What Father Libermann’s wholehearted acceptance of membership of the Mystical Body was instrumental in achieving for Christ the King is admirably outlined by Pope Pius XII in his Letter to Very Rev. Francis Griffin, C.S.Sp., Superior General, on the occasion of the Centenary of the Venerable Father’s death: “On the second of February next,” writes His Holiness, “the sons of the Venerable Francis Mary Paul Libermann will have the joy of celebrating with fitting splendour the Centenary of the death of this humble priest of France, restorer of the ancient Congregation of the Holy Ghost and inspirer of a new legion of Apostles, who, now for a century, have been writing a glorious page in the missionary history of the Church . . . You have good reason to contemplate the past with gratitude. You see, first of all, the ardent figure of Father Libermann, this convert enlightened by grace, like Saul on the way to Damascus . . . this apostle whom an admirable zeal for the people of the black race, then so spiritually abandoned, was soon to draw to the City of Peter. There he was to receive, as a reward for his unfailing confidence, the decisive lights which were to illuminate the last eleven years of his life when, a priest at last, he gathered his first missionaries around him and sent them forth, amid continual trials, to fecundate with their preaching and their sufferings that soil of Africa which was so dear to him, but which he was never to see.
“The seed was cast into the earth; this good worker had finished his task: ‘It is one man that soweth, and it is another that reapeth.’(John iv, 37). In 1852 there were already eighty eight religious to lament the premature death of their Father. But in the course of one century, the shoot, then so young and tender, has grown and waxed strong; and to-day it is not without emotion that the some 4,500 members of your Congregation, scattered over three continents, will return thanks to God for the spiritual fruitfulness of this apostle’s life . . . In particular, it is a joy to Us to see arising in this land of Africa, where nearly a thousand of your religious are sleeping their last sleep, the long-awaited reinforcement of the native clergy . . . Convinced, according to the teaching of the Angelic Doctor, that the apostolic life ‘Præsupponit abundantiam contemplationis,’[66] this priest, burning with love for his most abandoned brothers, was, above all, the man of God who, on his death-bed, left behind this last instruction in which he himself stands revealed: ‘God is all, man is nothing.’”[67]
THE POSTULATUM PRO HEBRÆIS
The two Fathers Lémann, converts from Judaism, drew up a Postulatum to obtain from the Vatican Council in 1870 an appeal full of mercy to the Jewish nation. They secured the signatures of 510 bishops, and all the bishops present at the Council would have willingly signed, only that the Fathers Lémann wished to leave the honour of the greatest number of signatures to the Postulatum for Papal Infallibility.
One of the many touching incidents related by the Fathers Lémann in Les Causes des Restes d’lsraël, has a claim to be mentioned here, as it concerns the only member of Father Libermann’s Congregation then a bishop. “The composition of the Postulatum,” we read, “presented serious difficulties. But Father Libermann protected us and smoothed away the difficulties.[68]. . . We had reserved to Most Rev. Dr. Plantier, Bishop of Nîmes, the honour of heading the list of bishops signing the Postulatum pro Hebræis . . . He had known of and encouraged our conversion, and he had always been our father and our friend . . . On our way to him, when the Postulatum was ready, we met Most Rev. Dr. Kobès, Vicar Apostolic of Senegambia, the only bishop then belonging to Father Libermann’s Congregation . . . He said to us: ‘I would like to be the first to sign, but the place of honour will be reserved to his Lordship, the Bishop of Nînes.’ ‘You cannot,’ he added, ‘refuse the signature I offer you, for I want to give it in the name of Father Libermann, our holy Founder in Jesus Christ and your brother in Abraham . . . Thus the list of signatures of the Postulatum opens with the name of His Lordship, Bishop Plantier, but the first signature affixed to the document was that of His Lordship, Bishop Kobès.”[69]
The prorogation of the Council interrupted the work of the convert brothers, but the reassembling of the Council will see the work continued. God grant that the appeal, if and when it comes, may be heard! Thus will peace at last come to Israel, and thus will a powerful impetus be given to the passage of the nations of the world to the dignity of children of Abraham by faith in the true Messias. This is what we pray for in the beautiful Collect after the fourth prophecy on Holy Saturday, after having begged God on Good Friday to withdraw the age-long veil from Jewish minds: “Let us pray, 0 God, whose ancient miracles we see renewed in our days, whilst by the water of our regeneration Thou workest for the salvation of the Gentiles, that which by the power of Thy right hand Thou didst for the delivery of one people from the Egyptian persecution: grant that all the nations of the world may become the children of Abraham and partake of the dignity of the people of Israel. Through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
NATIONAL APOSTASY
In Chapter III, which was written many years ago, I have given a brief outline of the Theology of History, pointing out the steady elimination of the organisation of society based on membership of Christ, which has been going on in Europe since the French Revolution of 1789. It cannot be too often repeated that the Masonic Declaration of the Rights of Man is anti-supernatural and therefore, a repudiation of membership of Christ, in fact, a declaration of war on the programme for order of Christ the King. Accordingly, when a country (America)weakens in regard to the first point of that programme by placing all religions on the same level (AmBishops "celebrate" such religious liberty) , it is a sign that it has been pulled into the anti-supernatural current.[70] When a country, as a social entity, thus adopts a wrong attitude to Christ the King, the effects are disastrous. Not only does it deprive itself of grace, that is, of light to see what is in order and of strength to cleave to it, but when “error has once become incarnate in legal formulæ and in administrative practice, it penetrates so deeply into people’s minds that it is impossible to eradicate it.”[71] Thus the way is prepared for the attack on the other points of our Lord’s programme, by the introduction of divorce, the banishment of religion from the schools, and the attack on family life and private ownership. The enemies of Christ the King are organised and know what they want, while Catholics are divided and do not realise that their hold on the faith is being gradually undermined. “Before God a nation has apostatised when its government has posited an act of apostasy, though many members of the nation may have remained faithful,”[72] and may continue faithful in spite of the increasing difficulties.
At the time La Question du Messie et le Concile du Vatican was written, the Fathers Lémann sadly pointed out that “not one of the Gentile nations had remained Catholic in its constitution and continued to bear aloft the standard of Christ and His Church.”[73] Since then there has been a poignant reaction in the case of Spain, so that there is now in the world at least one country that, as a country, proclaims its fidelity to Christ the King. The attitude towards Spain on the part of other nations is, however, a clear proof of how deeply naturalism has permeated the official world of our day. The Tablet (Brooklyn) of May 14th 1949, cited the frank statements of Senator Owen Brewster of Maine, a non-Catholic, in the American Senate. The Senator brought into the open the attitude of the American Delegation to the U.N.O. on Catholicism. Amongst other things, he said: “The subtle word is constantly passed that the alternative to Communism is Catholicism. We know that word is constantly uttered in the lobbies, although Senators do not care to bring it out on the floor. We are told that some very distinguished members of the American Delegation are among those who are most earnest in their opposition to the recognition of Spain, because forsooth Spain is a Catholic country. It is high time that the American people decided to tear the mask from this situation.”