| Editor : Abbé Georges de Nantes | N° 83 – August 2009 |
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TO SURMOUNT THE CRISIS
The “social” encyclical that was announced for Easter 2007, the fortieth anniversary of Populorum Progressio, has finally come out. Its delayed publication was a providential invitation for us to re-read and put into practice Pope St. Pius X’s Letter on the Sillon, “Our Apostolic Mandate”, in anticipation of its approaching centenary (25 August 1910; reprinted in full in the Auto-da-fe, pp. 681-700), « the most human pontifical text of this century about which no Pope has dared to speak since, not even Pius XII, who beatified and canonised his Doctor! » (Georges de Nantes CRC n° 225, August-September 1986).
St. Pius X condemned the Christian democrat movement of the Sillon with firmness and prophetic clarity. In fact, « the benefit of hindsight shows how stunningly original St. Pius X was » the Abbé de Nantes observed (ibid.); this holy Pontiff’s doctrine sheds light like a beacon on our deepening night, deepening, that is, because the doctrine that he condemned triumphed at the Council. To apprehend it, it suffices to compare St. Pius X’s text with that of the “Pastoral Constitution” Gaudium et Spes“Economic and Social Life” (He is Risen n° 79, April 2009) and on “The Life of the Political Community” (He is Risen n° 80, May 2009).
St. Pius X was addressing the French bishops:
« No, Venerable Brethren, – we must repeat with the utmost energy in these times of social and intellectual anarchy when everyone takes it upon himself to act as a teacher and lawmaker – the City cannot be built otherwise than as God has built it [this is precisely what Marc Sangnier’s movement, the Sillon, was proposing]; society cannot be setup unless the Church lays the foundations and supervises the work [the Second Vatican Council, quite to the contrary, decided to transform the Church into the servant of the world under construction on the new foundation of the rights of the human Person, a philosophy that had been condemned until then, and again specifically by Pius X]; no, civilisation is not something yet to be found, nor is the New City to be built on hazy notions [Paul VI wanted to invent a new civilisation that he called the « civilisation of love ». Whereas for St. Pius X, there is but one…]; it has been in existence and still is: it is Christian civilisation, it is the Catholic City. »
The optimism is astonishing: the Christian civilisation, the Catholic City not only « has been » but « still is », despite all the revolutions that attempted to annihilate it, the latest being that of the Second Vatican Council. Since this Council, Popes no longer ever speak about “Christendom”, while for St. Pius X and for the Abbé de Nantes, his disciple, « it has only to be set up and restored continually on its natural and divine foundations against the unremitting attacks of unsavoury utopia, revolt, and impiety. Omnia instaurare in Christo. » (Letter on the Sillon, n° 11)
It can be said that « the unremitting attacks of unsavoury utopia, revolt, and impiety » made their final onslaught under cover of the Second Vatican Council, and thus with all the prestige, power, and authority of the Church. In the initial stage, they prevailed by substituting within the very Church, in the heart of the sanctuary, the cult of man who makes himself God for the cult of God who became man. The present crisis that is spreading throughout the world is the retribution for this supreme impiety. To surmount this, we must counterattack « the unsavoury utopia » that is in question, and pit against it the « natural and divine foundations » of the « Christian civilisation », of the « Catholic City » that we want to restore with the help of God and the good help of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This is what we will attempt to do when commenting on the encyclical Caritas in Veritate in the following pages.
« The unsavoury utopia » in question, which triumphed at the Second Vatican Council, is personalism: a philosophical, metaphysical system that Jacques Maritain invented. He is the intellectual guide of Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II. If we want to set up, restore a Catholic society, we must begin by refuting this alleged “integral humanism” that was invented with the aim of thwarting “integral nationalism” and transforming the Church into a Movement for the Spiritual Animation of Universal Democracy. Only one philosopher countered Maritain’s “personalist” philosophy with a true, “relational” metaphysics: the Abbé de Nantes, our Father, who did not hesitate to draw from it all the consequences to the point of rising up against the errors of Paul VI and John Paul II.
On this basis, we can re-establish the « natural and divine foundations » of a « socio-economic » life. The Abbé de Nantes prefers to say « ecological ». The Catholic ecology of our 150 Points opposes capitalism and socialism, or rather: socialo-capitalism. In the years of the Council and the pontificates of Paul VI and John Paul II, the capitalo-socialist “system” prevailed to the point of seeming to lead humanity on the road to a marvellous “progress”, Populorum progressio, which made man truly king of the universe. It was our “ecological” ideal that was looked on as a utopia. Today, it is no longer a dream. In the face of the collapse of the capitalo-socialist system, it is either Catholic ecology… or famine for everyone.
For the order of Christendom to be reborn, we must, according to St. Pius X’s recommendation, not let ourselves be « misled, in the maze of current opinions, by the mirage of a false Democracy ». He addressed this recommendation to the French bishops without imagining that all the bishops of the world would fall into this error, that fifty years later they would produce in Council an amazing document under the title Gaudium et Spes. It uses « high-flown phrases, full of promises which are as high-sounding as unattainable », the very phrases that St. Pius X warned us not to take « from the rhetoric of the worst enemies of the Church and of the people. » Benedict XVI’s encyclical Caritas in Veritate is today its fully matured, unsurpassable fruit.
The failing of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council, the failing of Benedict XVI, is being « convinced that the social question and social science did not arise only yesterday [they were even convinced of the opposite, and Benedict XVI has inherited this conviction: according to them, everything began with Leo XIII, the first “social” Pope]; that the Church and the State, at all times and in happy concert, have raised up fruitful organisations to this end; that the Church, which has never betrayed the happiness of the people by consenting to dubious alliances, does not have to free herself from the past; that all that is needed is to take up again, with the help of the true workers for a social restoration, the organisms which the Revolution shattered, and to adapt them, in the same Christian spirit that inspired them, to the new environment arising from the material development of today’s society. Indeed, the true friends of the people are neither revolutionaries, nor innovators: they are traditionalists. » (n° 44 of the Letter “Our Apostolic Mandate” on the Sillon, 25 August 1910)