1. The phalangist belongs body and soul to the Catholic Church by his entry into her visible, hierarchical and fraternal communion that was instituted by Jesus Christ, and by his active spiritual participation in the profound life of this Mystical Body, which procures for him sacramental grace in abundance and the inner gifts of the Holy Spirit.
To a hidden extent he has a share in the Church’s spiritual reality, a share which depends on God’s mysterious liberality and on his own free response; this is the order of charity. He also has a share in the visible community – in accordance with her hierarchical discipline – through the functions entrusted to him and the services he is called upon to render; this is the order of mission.
2. Mindful of the need to be faithful to the Holy Spirit and to be properly subject to Christ and His Church, the phalangist will strive to progress in charity through a constant application to prayer, penance, the Christian virtues, and that gift of himself which crowns all. Even more, he will wish to serve Holy Church in his rightful place, in obedience to the hierarchy, and according to the functions assigned to him. He will always be mindful of the primacy of discipline in the service of the Christian community, but also of the sovereign primacy of charity in the Kingdom of Heaven.
3. The Phalange itself must merit its place in the hierarchically organised community by its attitude and its spirit of devotion. With respect and obedience it consecrates itself totally to the service of the Church, whilst constituting a society of persons charitably applying itself to the progress of its members.
But since the Church in these times seems to have fallen into the hands of a party – to the great detriment of her unity, holiness, apostolicity and catholicity – it is clear that the Phalange should not expect to be given a mission in the service of the brethren from the spontaneous good will of the Church’s pastors. Her members must lay claim to such a mission by manifesting the orthodoxy of their doctrine, their wish to practise holy charity, their zealous respect for the hierarchy, and their vehement desire to bring spiritual and temporal aid to a world in a state of perdition.
1. As a disciple of Christ, the phalangist is first and foremost attached to His Vicar on earth, the Sovereign Pontiff, the Bishop of Rome, which is "the mother and mistress of all the Churches". It is there that is found the centre of unity, the summit of holiness, the repository of the apostolic traditions, and the measure and order of catholicity. It is there that is found the rule of faith, the supreme laws governing rites, and the sovereignty of law.
The papacy must be what Jesus Christ wished it to be and what the Holy Spirit has made it. It must be endowed with its own proper organs of universal government, the Curia, and with all that is necessary for its longstanding sovereignty and independence, namely: a city, its own citizenship, stable private resources, and its own defence. Hence the necessity of the Popes’ temporal power, which the Church’s enemies have continually presented to the world as something detestable to be curbed and practically suppressed.
2. The phalangist, knowing the infirmity of all things human, needs to take his stand on the divine stability of this Rock; amid the general fickleness of this world, he needs this sure and stable axis. On principle and by experience, he is Roman, ultramontane, papist, and infallibilist. Through the Pope he feels more securely attached to Peter – for the Pope is Peter's true and unique successor – and more united to the Holy Spirit of Christ – for the Pope is His supreme Vicar.
Contrary to general opinion, he thinks that the pontifical function is simple, immutable, traditional and – unencumbered of all its recent superfluities – supremely efficacious. The papacy, with its three Powers, is so essential to the daily life of the Mystical Body that the Pope cannot neglect to exercise it without transgressing mortally and incurring the peril of damnation. The Sovereign Pontiff must teach. In other words he must proclaim the Catholic faith and transmit it to the faithful. Consequently he must guarantee the intangibility of the deposit of revelation entrusted to the Church by condemning and anathematising all heresy and error. He must sanctify the people of God by ensuring for them the communication of grace by all the means that Jesus Christ has entrusted to His Church. He must watch over the validity and dignity of the Church’s rites and sacraments, forbid modifications that corrupt their purity, and excommunicate the agents of novelty. He must govern the flock, both pastors and faithful, by preserving the hierarchical communion against all schism, and by administering justice, as pastor and immediate judge of all Christians, to remedy every act of division or oppression. Finally, as supreme head of the Holy Church, it is for him to proceed to the Church’s internal reform, if it proves to be necessary, by means of his sovereign prescriptions or the proclamation of a General Council, and to watch over the defence and protection of Christendom against all her enemies by deciding on and preaching the Crusade, by condemning unjust wars, and by excommunicating tyrants and felonious or apostate princes.
3. The phalangist has nothing but contempt for "Gallican nonsense" (Charles Maurras) or for Josephite or collegialist nonsense, which are nothing but the incongruous claims of a former regalism, a recalcitrant parliamentarianism, and today of a secular, masonic democratism. One cannot remedy the shortcomings and disorders, true or alleged, of the Head by appealing to its members, who are constitutionally incapable of supplying what is lacking in the order and authority of Rome.
The phalangist’s rule of service to the Pope is so grave and primordial that in case of doubt concerning the true Pope, concerning his legitimacy, his orthodoxy and his orthopraxy, he is open to either the path of blind obedience or legitimate opposition, both ways regarded as possible and equally honourable. Those who protest serve the papacy of all time and keep it exempt from reproach, whilst those who submit maintain the authority of the Pope of the day with a view to an infallible tomorrow.
4. However, it is not good that popes should fail in their duty over many years and several pontificates, nor that they should lose themselves in heretical opinions, schismatic novelties and scandalous conduct, allowing souls and Christendom to suffer, keeping their favours for all that is bad and their strictures for all that is good, without some voice being raised in the Church from among the cardinals, the bishops and the people of Rome.
Then the Phalange will remember its past mission in order to assume its new duties.
1. Under the Pope’s authority, which is sovereign, universal, and immediate, and must be recognised by the whole church, each region of the earth is entrusted to a bishop, a successor of one of the twelve Apostles, who will govern a diocese, which is that territorial portion entrusted to him by the Bishop of bishops. It is the Pope who gives the bishop jurisdiction over a particular portion of the flock, and it is only in communion with the Pope that he can exercise this jurisdiction legitimately. For this reason and on this condition only, the phalangist will recognise his bishop as representing Jesus Christ, will honour his authority and appeal to his spiritual powers as a direct successor of the Apostles.
The local Church keeps the Christian spiritual life and activity on a human scale; she is entirely dependent on the bishop’s authority, but also on his personal devotion. The phalangist will remind himself of this, so that he may love his bishop and – whether it be in trust or even in the most painful confrontations – help him preserve the diocesan Church’s holy vitality, her faith, her law and her charity, in devotion to her traditions.
2. On the other hand, the phalangist will suspect and distrust all collegial, bureaucratic and parliamentary organisations that encroach on the personal authority of the bishop, which they seek to discredit and make irrelevant. They do this either from above, in the form of episcopal conferences and commissions, or from below, in the form of delegations of priests or militants, or on the same level, such as the centres of Catholic Action movements. These parasitic organisations claim a consultative power that allows them to dominate popular opinion, and a deliberative power – always usurped – that lets them wield the bishop’s authority. These anonymous, irresponsible oligarchies are known to be fundamentally revolutionary; every heresy and schism finds its shelter and support amongst them.
The phalangist will stay outside all these organisations, unwilling to know any but the traditional and legitimate organs, the Episcopal Council, the diocesan, regional or general Synods, and the General Councils.
3. The dioceses with their sovereign bishops, doctors, pastors and leaders of the flock are, by divine institution, the great living reality of the Church, whose fortunes and misfortunes have made the glory or the wretchedness of the Christian peoples. That is not to say that the procedures for designating bishops should not be studied or renewed in the light of tradition. For election is preferable to appointment by temporal powers, and nomination by Rome is safer than collegial co-optation, which today is the scourge of our oligarchic and liberal episcopates.
In any case, as events today show, the local Churches would not be able to survive for long were the Roman Church not to exercise her supreme power over them with vigilance and exactitude.
1. The phalangist knows only three hierarchical and fraternal communities in the Church: the papacy, the diocese, and the parish. Rome is the seat of infallible sovereignty, holy and supreme. The diocese is the seat of tutelary authority, local and dealing with everyday matters. But for each member of the faithful, the parish is the constant, normal and providential locale for his worship of God and his fraternal charity. The parish priest, its pastor, receives his powers from the bishop, so that he might be at the service of all in accordance with the habits and customs of this primordial community.
2. Despite the efforts of revolutionaries and reformists to replace this basic, territorial and immemorial cell of the Church with floating, spontaneous communities of freely gathered individuals owing no territorial allegiance and sharing no common past, the parish must remain. Because of its territorial foundation, the parish alone can and must guarantee, over and above any individual whim, the preaching of the Gospel, the worship of God, the administration of the sacraments, and the direction of souls. In this way, it will strive to keep all its children under its wing from birth till death.
The parish constitutes a community of life and destiny, recognised as of right. The free community, on the other hand, floats according to the good pleasure of its adherents and subsists only through the initiative of its chance leaders. The parish Church in the village centre and its prominent bell-tower indicate that all human reality is gathered up so that it may be consecrated to Christ throughout space and the span of generations.
3. The phalangist is a good parishioner; he loves to find himself amongst the ordinary members of the faithful and to be one of them in the shared and permanent essentials of the Christian life. In this he is unlike certain intellectuals and a supposed elite who despise the parish and avoid it because of its promiscuities.
At this lowest rung, the Church’s life must be realist, communitarian and traditional. It is good that an elected council of churchwardens, under the honorary presidency of the parish priest, should administer the property of the parish and watch over the maintenance of religion, respecting what is holy and the traditions.
To be instructed in the catechism and by the Sunday homilies, to receive the sacraments in due season, to take part in the liturgy, in devotions, sacramentals, charitable, apostolic and missionary works – all this defines the popular religion which is, in its parish setting, the fundamental, aesthetic, and ethical mysticism of the Catholic people throughout the ages.
1. For the phalangist, Christian human society is not an assemblage of individuals, all foundling children and itinerants without home or country, who have committed themselves to the Church of their choice in an optional contract that can be terminated at any time. It is a community of dynastic, patriarchal families, profoundly attached to a land, to a house, to property, and to tradition. And their Christian faith is the first of these traditions and the most concretely involved in their temporal existence.
Continuity of supernatural life in Christian society is assured by the priestly ministry, but fundamentally it is maintained by the family institution. In Christendom each of us receives and accepts as a whole the double heritage of birth and baptism, the life of grace and the life of human civilisation, with all their obligations and benefits inseparably bound up together, goods of body and heart, of soul and mind, land and language, a patrimony both human and divine.
2. In Christendom, families are the primary and most stable social powers, in some ways sovereign, and every authority is bound to respect them. Although families receive all that is necessary for their Christian life from the parish priest, it is nevertheless for them, under the responsibility of their heads of family, to organise and conduct the Christian life according to their traditions. Thus schools, corporations, mutual benefit societies and hospitals naturally pertain to heads of families, for all paternity comes from God.
3. It is the families that are Christian by tradition and of a strong patriarchal authority, united and numerous, which at the heart of the parishes preserve the faith and the virtues, even unto heroism and holiness. The clergy must not make itself their masters, but their defenders, their guides and servants, for it is from these families that priestly and religious vocations come, great missionary vocations, and an abundance of new generations of Christians.
Families remain but the priest passes. Evil entered our old Christendom through a "democrat" clergy which with cunning and violence attacked traditional family institutions to replace them with more manageable militant movements, which were strong to destroy, but powerless to build anything and hopelessly sterile. The phalangist will restore the family, beginning with his own.
The treasure of living traditions and the immediate rule of Christian tradition are found preserved, in an admirably implicit and confused way, in popular religion, which has formed gradually and never ceases to evolve in the community of the faithful under the twofold influence of the hierarchical mission and the example of the saints. Detested by the modernists, it is the primary victim of their "reform"!
1. The phalangist cannot agree to seeing this popular religion despised or relegated to the level of magic, routine formalism, and superstition… as though the sacraments were inadequate to the task of making it perfect, profound, salutary and sanctifying, forbidding anyone from suspecting otherwise! Are the abundant fruits of popular religion not known to all? It is the daily life of the Church right down to our own days. Its detractors are in debt to it for what they themselves are.
None of us, therefore, can accept that people of the so-called conciliar Reform should be unconcerned about it, should seek to bring about its death, and should openly attack it under, the pretext of replacing it with something finer, more intellectual, and above all more in keeping with their own image, that of liberal individualists.
2. Consequently, the phalangist takes part in every movement of traditionalist defence which demands from the hierarchical Church an effective protection of the faith and popular customs against the intrigues of subversive parties. The tribunal of the faith, the Index, the Holy Office, canonical visitations and sanctions, should all be put into operation in order to safeguard this popular religion. For if it should wither, it would entail the end of any vitality in the Church, the death of age-old religious values, lived by the people but not registered by the intellectuals… and which no register could ever bring to life again were they to disappear completely.
He will also request the Church's pastors that everything be done for the fitting service of this popular Christian life and that external assistance be devised for its support and not for its subversion: religious orders, works, journals… For this popular religion, so stable and so profound that it appears to be inert, can in fact be improved, purified and enriched by humble, charitable and persevering efforts. Once more popular religion must be esteemed, cherished and practised! This is the duty of those whom God has established as pastors, and not as reformers and demolishers of the Church.
The Pope, the bishops, and the parish priests are the principal, immediate and indispensable ministers of the Christian people, of the faithful. That is why the full personal authority of these hierarchically ordained and commissioned pastors over their flock makes for the tranquillity of the ecclesiastical institution. They must never be supplanted, rivalled or hampered by religious orders and congregations or by lay groups of perfection and apostolic work. On the contrary these groups must help them, treating them as the salt of the earth amongst the faithful.
It is as a result of the Lord’s call to the perfect life in accordance with the evangelical counsels, and under the certain inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that to the ecclesiastical ministries of the hierarchy have been added a multitude of institutes of perfection which impose on their members special demands of holiness and offer them conditions of life more appropriate to their observance.
1. The religious orders thus attract to themselves, from the mass of the faithful practising the common religion throughout the world, the more generous souls for whom they provide the opportunity of a life more dedicated to God, more perfect, and unfailingly more fruitful. Far from impoverishing the Christian community from whom they appear to be taken, they enrich it with the treasure of their prayers, their merits, their example, and their aid. Models of the contemplative life and an encouragement to the heroic practice of the virtues, through their charism of teaching, devotion, and apostolic zeal, they are an indispensable leaven in the Christian dough.
2. The third orders and secular institutes are the extension and, as it were, the countless ramifications of the great institutes of perfection. Their members, in effect, receive from the latter the necessary spiritual impulse for the observance of the evangelical counsels and the quest for perfection, so that they might exercise them in the world at the heart of the Christian people in any temporal condition and activity.
Thus the Phalange will constitute the third order of the Little Brothers and Little Sisters of the Sacred Heart, who will provide it with the light and energy for its action, in accordance with the spirit of Brother Charles de Jesus, Father de Foucauld.
1. Catholic Action termed specialised – fabricated to oppose Action Française in the years 1920-30 in accordance with the spirit of the times, which was at one and the same time democratic and totalitarian, monolithic in its organisation and its effect on the masses, but anarchic in its doctrine and life – is contrary to the Church’s constitutive principles. Incapable of being amended, it can only continue to do what it has done ever since its appearance: disorganise the hierarchy, like a state within a State, and corrupt Catholic doctrine and morals through a continual demagogic outbidding of the hierarchy.
2. Its specialisation by socio-professional classes is absolutely anti-Catholic and indeed aberrant. It leads to class warfare, involving those priests who dedicate themselves to it, and it separates these militant laity from their clergy and from their parishes, which are at the service of everyone.
Its method of conducting the apostolate "of the milieu by the milieu" is secular, democratic and fundamentally immanentist. It is contrary to the unity and holiness of the Church, whose ministry has always been carried out by hierarchical authority and by the influence of her holiness. Furthermore, a clericalism reserved to a party of "specialist" priests and religious and an elitism set apart for the benefit of the Christian-democrat party has made of Catholic Action a sect with heretical and schismatic objectives.
Its fruitless attempts to attract the so-called popular masses by presenting a falsified "Gospel" responding to their cultural aspirations, to their demands for dignity, justice and participation in political affairs, have proved to be contrary to the faith, the law, and the charity taught by the Church. Already won over to modernism and progressivism, specialised Catholic Action has sunk into a practically atheist or agnostic materialism and has joined the revolutionary struggle alongside militant communists By putting human progress first, it has ended by completely obscuring the divine work of eternal salvation.
3. The Phalange intends to construct itself as a movement for Catholic Action on an entirely different basis, one that is supernatural, traditional and canonical. It is open to all Catholics of any age, background, or profession. And from any country. Its first aim is the religious perfection of its members. Its second aim is to offer well-disciplined support to the Church’s apostolate, without which its other activities would drift away from the purity of a life, a way, and a truth which are Christian and Catholic and which remain its beginning and end.