Author: Robert Robbins

Origins of the Easter Egg

/ Robert Robbins

Children love trying to find things. They look for hours through Eye Spy or Where’s Waldo books or play scavenger hunt or treasure hunt in the backyard collecting random objects just for the fun of finding them. But perhaps the greatest finding game of all is the age-old egg hunt on Easter.

The egg hunt is done using decorated eggs or the colorful plastic kind which may be filled with chocolates, coins, or even dollar bills for the spendthrift family. These eggs are then placed about the yard in obscure and well-hidden places, all the more hidden and obscure the more value that’s nestled inside. But why eggs on Easter exactly? The answer to that question may never be answered this side of the grave, but historians speculate that the Easter egg is of both pre-Christian and Christian origin.

Decorating eggs goes back thousands of years and eggs have always been associated with rebirth by many cultures. So it wasn’t a leap of meaning to make eggs a principle symbol of the Christian holiday of Easter. As sociologist Kenneth Thompson says in his book, Culture & Progress: Early Sociology of Culture, the Easter egg developed in the east.

“The use of eggs at Easter seems to have come from Persia into the Greek Christian Churches of Mesopotamia, thence to Russia and Siberia through the medium of Orthodox Christianity,” Thompson said. “From the Greek Church the custom was adopted by either the Roman Catholics or the Protestants and then spread through Europe.”

In his work, Easter and Paganism, Peter Gainsford believes that eggs became associated with Easter not in the east but in the west, predominately through the penitential practices of Lent during which Catholics of the Middle Ages would give up delectable food stuffs like dairy, meat, and, yes, eggs. When Easter Sunday arrived, the lenten fast would be broken along with a lot of eggs.

In The Catholic Weekly, Fr. John Flader suggests that the Easter egg is indeed from the east but settled in the west.

“It seems that as far back as the fourth century in the East eggs were blessed at Easter time,” writes Flader. “The Benedictio Ovorum, blessing of eggs, came to the West in the twelfth century, perhaps brought from the East by the Crusaders. In the East the eggs were stained red in memory of the blood Christ shed on the Cross.”

In one popular Orthodox legend, Saint Mary Magdalene, who was the first to discover the empty tomb on Sunday morning, was of patrician rank and so could seek an audience with the Roman Emperor Caesar. As the story goes, upon entering the halls of the emperor, she took up an egg from the royal table to argue a point about the resurrection of Christ but Caesar rebuked her, saying it were easier for the egg in her hand to turn red than for Christ to have risen from the dead. The egg turned red, and most likely Caesar’s face did, too.

Wherever the Easter egg came from, one thing seems to be certain, it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. And if the egg hunt isn’t quite enough egg fun, there is always egg rolling which, for over a century now, children have been doing on the White House lawn.

If rolling eggs down the lawn with a long-handled spoon isn’t your shtick, you can do as the Cajuns in Louisiana and pock (from French, paques, or Easter) your eggs with friends and family, which means going around cracking your egg (preferably stained beautiful) against your opponent’s egg. The winner (the one who doesn’t crack) eats all.

Whether you hide and hunt for them, roll them down a hill, knock them against a friend’s, or just eat them, eggs are an essential part of Easter celebrations, but why that is may not be fully understood until the day of the Resurrection.

The Politics of God

/ Robert Robbins

Tomorrow is Super Tuesday, or the day on which the majority of the United States holds its primary elections. Here in Illinois, where I live and work and vote, there are several races at the local and state level which are of interest. As a reporter, it is my job to be informed and to report on political movements within the territory I reside, and to have a sense of the issues, the people, the egos, the platforms, in a word, the politics of the place. But I can tell you with complete honesty, that after several months of being on the local political beat, even having a chance to sit down and talk to an incumbent U.S. Representative and his challenger, I go to the polls tomorrow with a sinking feeling in my gut, because I really haven’t a clue who it is I should vote for.

Cause of Voter Ignorance

The democratic system doesn’t work, at least not as it is practiced today. That is a shame to say, but it is true. In order for a democratic system to work today, there must be an informed voting body. Otherwise, the outcome to any election in which the man elected is unknown is a sham election, because the man voted for does not actually represent the people who voted for him. How does this happen? Simply put, this happens because newspapers are dying, and there aren’t enough reporters to talk about all the candidates.

Of course, I am not talking about Trump or Biden. Every news agency in the country talks about those two. But does your local newspaper talk about those running in your state senatorial race? What about your county commissioner race? Thought not. I know first hand, because of the handful of news publications in southern Illinois, I am one of two reporters in the newsroom, and I am the only one who has written a handful of political pieces in the recent past leading up to the primaries.

If voters are not getting their information about local politicians at the local level, where are they getting it? The answer is they are not. So the typical voter probably doesn’t even look down-ballot after the president and U.S. races. Maybe they know something of those who are running for state offices, but I seriously doubt it, because the Big Media isn’t really covering state news. Regional news outlets are, and those media outlets at the state level are stretched thin, and as you get down to the regional level, even more so, until you get to the town level, where there is usually an empty lot, and old sign, in other words, a mere memory of a paper long since dead.

Rendering Unto Caesar

I am currently reading a very fascinating account of Cicero’s life written by Plutarch, a Greek political biographer. In the book, you get a sense of just how corrupt men are, how back-biting, benighted by self-serving interests over and against the state, and how every man, including Cicero, were in the end either cowards or wicked villains. Cicero died within a few decade of the birth of Christ.

The point is, men are still like that. Politicians are still like that. Nothing new under the sun. If we are truly to render the just fruits unto Caesar, it should probably be with a sharpened sword. But the one among us without sin may thrust his dagger into Caesar first.

I know there are probably those reading this who think we should not vote. Presently, I think I am making the case we may have a good reason not to vote, at least not until we have educated ourselves about who it is we are going to vote for, since newspapers can’t do that for us anymore. Here I would like to offer a few practical moral considerations to answer the question how are we suppose to vote.

Who Should Receive Your Vote

The candidate who should receive your vote, in my own opinion–this is opining on the Apocalypse, not pontificating on the Apocalypse–is the candidate, be it at the county, state, or federal level, who you have researched to the degree that you can, which means you should be able to answer a few fundamental questions about that politician’s platform. For instance:

  • Does the candidate believe in the sanctity of life?
  • Does the candidate believe in the sanctity of marriage?
  • Does the candidate believe in the sanctity of the sexes, “Male and female He created them.”
  • Is the candidate reasonable, i.e., just, equitable, consistent in policies?
  • Does the candidate seem to support foreign interest more than national?
  • What is a basic recap of the politician’s voting record?
  • Is the candidate divorced? (Could the candidate govern a state or country well without looking after his own house?)

You will note that I do not ask you to consider the candidate’s political party. Democrats and Republicans, as they have been given to recently, are both morally bankrupt. Consider the scramble from the Right to quickly assure their American conservative constituency that they will work as hard as they can to ensure Americans can still have their cake and eat it, too, by having children through IVF while they let their unwanted children die in the refrigerator.

Nor am I saying one could ever really vote Democrat in good conscience. Is there even one Democratic candidate at any level of government who doesn’t support the sin that cries to heaven or the murder of babies? I don’t think so.

But vote we must as Americans. It is our civic duty to do so. Those who think it is not or will not vote because the 2020 election was a charade of democracy, you have my sympathy, because I agree it was. The evidence of widespread election fraud is undeniable to anyone who has watched the hearings actually airing out the evidence of physical voter manipulation or the data dump analysis and statistically impossible anomalies. But, still, to the best of our ability, we must vote in the primary and in the general elections.

We must, not because I think so, not because the constitution empowers and encourages us to do so, but because God Himself told us to.

Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s

Mark 12:17

The Vote

The vote is a piece, as it were, of the commonwealth. It is a share in the decision making power of a community. Imagine, then, members of a prodigiously large household having to take a vacation to one of three different but all very enticing resort destinations, say, one to the Bahamas, another to Alaska, and a third to Ireland, were each given a vote. Each then has a share in the good of the family, but only if exercised. If a member abstains, then they forfeit their share in determining the good of the family.

But, whereas we might be indifferent as to whether we go to Ireland or the Bahamas, we cannot be indifferent as to whether we allow open borders. We have to get off the fence and decide if fences or walls and borders make good neighbors or not. I am a member of that ever-dwindling body of believers who reason that if there weren’t borders, then there jolly-well needn’t be a country.

But, if you want a country, you need to have a border. Perhaps that is too subtle for the Left. If human zygotes are left in the freezer, that’s murder. Perhaps that’s too subtle for the Right. But Left or Right, we have to make a decision between the lesser evil. Since borders are man’s and babies are God’s, I know which side of the fence I stand on.

Act of Spiritual Communion

/ Robert Robbins
Prayer and Mysticism

HOW A HOLY DESIRE FOR THE EUCHARIST SANCTIFIES

An act of love which God preserves in silver vessels.
By Robert Robbins

Communion with God Outside Mass

In these times of uncertainty, one is unsure how to satisfy their Sunday obligation while at the same time not compromising their Catholic conscience, because there are so many groups now which seemingly splinter the Body of Christ into a multiplicity of sectarian factions, none of which appear to have any claim on being Catholic.

From the mainstream Catholic church which celebrates the sacrilegious new mass, to indult Latin mass chapels which recognize but resist the one they pray in communion with and call pope, to the Society of Saint Pius X chapels who take resisting the See of Peter to another level, to Sedevacantist chapels which deny the pope is the pope, to pray-at-home Catholics, which are seemingly so rare and odd as to be axiomatically incredible if not crazy, one is at a loss where to turn to be with God and adore Him in spirit and truth.

God is a spirit; and they that adore him, must adore him in spirit and in truth.

John 4:24

The crisis in the Church is real, and there are many different ways good people, Catholic people, try to solve the problem. Leaving aside that quandary for another day, what follows here is how to have communion with God even if you cannot make it to mass.

Faith and Charity Required

Catholics who cannot attend mass are encouraged to perform an act of spiritual communion, which holy practice has been taught by the Church for centuries as a way to communicate with Christ.

Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), writing in the Summa Theologica, a book of instruction in theology for seminarians and literate laity, teaches that spiritual communion is not only a way to communicate with Christ, but is actually the very end or effect of the sacrament of the Eucharist.

Aquinas says, “The effect of the sacrament can be secured by every man if he receive it in desire, though not in reality.” That is to say, the man who desires to receive the Holy Eucharist receives the effects of the sacrament itself without ever actually receiving the sacrament.

Further, Aquinas teaches that it is through faith and charity that we communicate spiritually with Christ and receive the effect of the sacrament.

“Therefore, as the perfect is divided against the imperfect, so sacramental eating, whereby the sacrament only is received without its effect, is divided against spiritual eating, by which one receives the effect of this sacrament, whereby a man is spiritually united with Christ through faith and charity.”

The Roman Catechism (1566), which was commissioned by the Council of Trent as the official catechism or compendium of Catholic doctrine designed for the clergy, echoes the Angelic Doctor’s teaching on spiritual communion when it teaches about the three-fold way of communicating: sacramental only, spiritual only, and sacramental and spiritual, the second of which concerns us here.

“Others are said to receive the Eucharist in spirit only. They are those who, inflamed with a lively ‘faith which worketh by charity,’ partake in wish and desire of that celestial bread offered to them, from which they receive, if not the entire, at least very great fruits.”

Again, spiritual communion is defined as a desire for the Bread of Angels, urged on by faith and charity, without which such desire for communion is vain. This is because the Holy Eucharist presupposes both faith in God and love of God.

Silver and Gold

Gold is the most precious metal but silver is a close second best. As recounted by St. Alphonsus de Ligouri (1696-1787), bishop and Doctor of the Church, in his work, Visits to the Most Holy Sacrament and the Blessed Virgin Mary, our Blessed Lord Himself keeps our spiritual communions in vessels of silver.

“How pleasing these spiritual communions are to God, and the many graces which He bestows through their means, was manifested by our Lord Himself to Sister Paula Maresca, the foundress of the convent of St. Catherine of Sienna in Naples, when (as it is related in her life) He showed her two precious vessels, the one of gold, the other of silver; He then told her that in the gold vessel He preserved her sacramental communions, and in the silver one her spiritual communions.”

In the same work, St. Alphonsus says, “He also told Blessed Jane of the Cross, that each time that she communicated spiritually, she received a grace of the same kind as the one which she received when she really communicated. Above all, it will suffice us to know that the holy Council of Trent greatly praises spiritual communions, and encourages the faithful to their practice.”

Spiritual Acts

An act of spiritual communion presupposes other acts which are prior to it and which should be performed just before a spiritual communion to ensure the greatest possible salutary effect in our soul.

Act of Faith 

O MY GOD, I firmly believe that Thou art one God in Three Divine Persons, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. I believe that Thy Divine Son became Man, and died for our sins, and that He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe these and all the truths which the Holy Catholic Church teaches, because Thou hast revealed them, Who canst neither deceive nor be deceived. 

This act is necessary for salvation, as without faith it is impossible to please God.

But without faith it is impossible to please God. For he that cometh to God, must believe that he is, and is a rewarder to them that seek him. 

Hebrews 11:6

It is very sad that there are so many people, so many, who do not seem to have faith. No one can judge another’s heart except God, but there seems to be very little faith in the world today. But that was to be expected.

But yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth? 

Luke 18:8

Act of Charity

O MY GOD, I love Thee above all things, with my whole heart and soul, because Thou art all-good and worthy of all love. I love my neighbor as myself for the love of Thee. I forgive all who have injured me, and ask pardon of all whom I have injured.

Love is the life of a Christian. Communion is, in simple terms, entering into the life of Christ, dwelling with Christ and allowing Christ to dwell within us. Without love, then, of God, spiritual communion is impossible. Further, without love of our neighbor, which means anyone other than ourselves, the door to spiritual communion with God is shut in our face.

If any man say, I love God, and hateth his brother; he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother, whom he seeth, how can he love God, whom he seeth not?

1 John 4:20

Act of Contrition

O MY GOD,  I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell; but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who art all-good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. Amen.

We can believe in and have a profound love for God, but we are imperfect lovers when we sin against Him. That is why, prior to saying an act of spiritual communion, we should say an act of contrition. Doing so, we dust off our hearts which become little silver tabernacles God fashions for Himself for our spiritual communions.

Act of Spiritual Communion

MY JESUS, I believe that Thou are truly present in the Most Blessed Sacrament. I love Thee above all things, and I desire to possess Thee within my soul. Since I am unable to now to receive Thee sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace Thee as being already there, and unite myself wholly to Thee; never permit me to be separated from Thee. 

The act of spiritual communion can be said whenever and wherever we please, as many times as we wish, and without having to fast or drive hours to a mass center or chapel run by clergy we cannot be sure are licit anyway. The mass is vital to the life of the Church, and the Holy Eucharist is an indispensable part of the faith of every Catholic. But if fact or conscience keeps us from being able to attend mass and receive the Most Blessed Sacrament, a spiritual communion is always available without having to compromise our Catholic faith.

Answers to Common Objections Against Sedevacantism

/ Robert Robbins
Apologetics

CANON LAW, NECESSITY OF SACRAMENTS, THE GREAT MONARCH, AND MORE

Common errors that are easily answered which keep good people outside the Church.
By Robert Robbins

The problem today in discussing or debating the present crisis of the Holy See—the crisis, in sum, simply being that the Chair is empty—is intellectual laziness.

Nine out of ten disputants who are really just naysayers in disguise hurl their “arguments” at us like stones at Saint Stephen because they are too lazy to look them up and see that they are not stones but myths made from the stuff of dreams and as artificial, unsubstantial and airy as styrofoam.

I cannot dwell upon the reasons for this laziness which produces this effect, because I have to at least not be lazy myself and answer the objections (however easy it may be), but I would speculate that it has something to do with the operation of error spoken of by Saint Paul, as far as supernatural causes are concerned, and, according to the order of natural causes, it has undoubtedly something to do with the way democracy has ruined the intellect of democratic people.

People don’t think anymore because they think they know. They get a bit of education in the schools, like how to read (barely), how to calculate (usually with the aid of a calculator), and the of rest their time in school is filled up with fables about democratic modern man and his glories, lauds, and honors due him because he discovered America, discovered penicillin, discovered the North Pole, or discovered that democracy doesn’t actually work but communism looks pretty good.

What they don’t get, or if they do, they are the few in Ivy League schools presently running the show, is a rudimentary grounding in the principles of logical and sustained thought. This is the kind of thing that the Trivium and Quadrivium used to teach children and young scholars which is still possible through homeschooling—but that is for another post.

However we have gotten here where a debate or a good conversation about real things is impossible, we are here, so the question is what to do? If the individual is sincere there is hope of conversion. If the person is lazy as I think they probably are, there probably isn’t. But there is always prayer.

I turn now to those fluff and stuff objections.

Objections

The following objections were sent to me by a reader who wants to convert her childhood friend from the Recognize and Resist (R&R) position, and asked me if I could point her in the right direction on this site for posts to help her answer the objections, because (lamentably) I did not and do not use tabs, though I think I shall moving forward.

Canon Law Says the Pope is Pope

“He is, by Canon Law, the Pope, yes, and it is our duty to resist all evil things that come from his mouth, not just leave his flock. He is liable to err, as all human beings do.”

There are a number of issues with this objection. The first is, there is a distinction between fact and law. A law may forbid murder but the law cannot point out who murderers are. I know, common sense. But that is what this objection is saying in effect. But that is false, not only because canon law actually says the opposite, but that canon law cannot really say anything apart from facts, which our intrepid interlocutor actually assumes in the first place, namely, that the man who “canon law says is pope” must be resisted.

The fact that the man must be resisted is evidence that he is not the pope, because the reason for his being resisted is heresy, but heresy, according to canon law, makes one lose one’s office by the act of heresy itself. This is basic canon law which all the Novus Ordos know but ignore or deny which perplexes me to Andromeda, but there you go.

I could go on with this one objection, but I have others to get to. Let me address the last bit about the pope being capable of error.

Proofs

Q. 530. When does the Church teach infallibly?

A. The Church teaches infallibly when it speaks through the Pope and Bishops united in general council, or through the Pope alone when he proclaims to all the faithful a doctrine of faith or morals.

The pope is infallible when he proclaims a doctrine to the faithful on matters of faith or morals when the conditions are met:

Q. 531. What is necessary that the Pope may speak infallibly or ex-cathedra?

A. That the Pope may speak infallibly, or ex-cathedra:
1. He must speak on a subject of faith or morals;
2. He must speak as the Vicar of Christ and to the whole Church;
3. He must indicate by certain words, such as, we define, we proclaim, etc., that he intends to speak infallibly.

The pope is not infallible in every utterance.

Q. 532. Is the Pope infallible in everything he says and does?

A. The Pope is not infallible in everything he says and does, because the Holy Ghost was not promised to make him infallible in everything, but only in matters of faith and morals for the whole Church. Nevertheless, the Pope’s opinion on any subject deserves our greatest respect on account of his learning, experience and dignity.

All these being true axiomatically because the catechism teaches them, we must understand that, just because the pope is capable of error when he is not deciding a matter of faith or morals does not mean that he is capable of leading souls into error by acts other than ex cathedra. The idea is simply legalistic, absurd and contrary to the rule of faith which says that the Roman pontiff is the teacher and ruler of Christ’s Church. Were he capable of deceiving the elect into sin and damning their own souls through false teaching which falls short of doctrine, like communion for the divorced and remarried, blessings for homosexual couples, or praying with infidels, the office of the pope would be rendered meaningless and even pernicious because absolute spiritual authority would be coupled with total corruption—which is actually a really good definition of Antichrist.

Q. 528. How do you know that the Church can not err?

A. I know that the Church can not err because Christ promised that the Holy Ghost would remain with it forever and save it from error. If, therefore, the Church has erred, the Holy Ghost must have abandoned it and Christ has failed to keep His promise, which is a thing impossible.

But all that is fiddling while Rome is burning, which happened over sixty years ago at Vatican 2, when error and false doctrine was solemnized and promulgated ex cathedral via the universal ordinary magisterium of the would-be Catholic Church, only the See of Peter was vacated at the time so nothing actually issued from a pope.

The Vatican 2 church did err, many times in fact, promulgating heresies like the true Church of Christ subsists in but is not equal to the Catholic Church, or Muslims worship the same God as Christians, which is the denial of the Holy Trinity.

Either you deny that these are heresies, which is impossible, or you deny that the Church promulgated them. R&R deny the Church promulgated them, saying that they were not definitive teachings of the Roman Pontiff. But BC 530 states that the Church teaches infallibly when the pope and bishops are united in general council. V2 was a general council. Therefore the teachings should be trustworthy and infallible, but if you believe in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church and Holy Trinity, you must reject Vatican 2 as heresy.

Sacramental Necessity


“We need the Sacraments.”

It is true we need the sacraments. There you can read some common questions answered. I also link to an article which discusses the sense of necessity of the sacraments and which are in fact necessary for salvation.

That article is long and tied up with a controversy that may slow things down a bit. The take away is that the Church teaches the sacraments are necessary for salvation but that, when not available, there are substitutes. There is spiritual communion for the Eucharist, spiritual confession and perfect contrition for Penance, even the ardent desire for baptism and the love of God and hatred of sin for God’s sake perfectly annihilate sin and the guilt of sin—that’s in the Summa Theologica.

The Great Monarch Will Save Us


“So you think you can’t listen to the Pope? That’s such a hopeless position! Because if there’s no possibility of electing a new pope, how long will this go on for before the world ends? No, I think the Great Monarch is coming.”

To be blunt, this is just ridiculous. I have read a book or two on prophecy and have heard of the myth of the Great Monarch but anyone who does the same and bases their belief on who is pope or not on whether there is to be an establishment of a world peace occasioned by a man on a white horse riding onto the global scene calling himself a monarch (are there even any monarchical blood lines left in the West?) is living in a Disney cartoon. The idea in the modern world is patently absurd. And this, not because I dislike monarchies! I think monarchy is the best form of government. Rather, because the objection rests on the idea of a deus ex machina, and a false one at that and one which is incongruous with how political power is structured today through democratic super powers and nuclear warheads and aircraft carriers. Anyone waiting for the “Great Monarch” would need to wait a good deal before democracies lose their hold on the world.

The true deus ex machina is not the Monarch on the White Horse but the Ancient of Days on the white clouds of glory coming to judge the living and the dead. This thing we’re living through is nothing short of the Apocalypse. I have written about it before, but perhaps readers should watch the documentary I made instead.

Even Antipopes Can Be Saints


“Did you not hear of St. Hippolytus? Goes to show even an anti-pope can be a Saint!”

This objection really got me thinking how intellectually lazy people are. It took me about three minutes to locate, read, and conclude that Saint Hippolytus was not both an anti-pope and a saint. Rather, after relenting of his idiocy and dying on the island of Sardinia afterward in penance and exile, he was then and only then honored as a saint. The account of his deeds can be read here.

The point is, Hippolytus repented of his schism and was reconciled with the Catholic Church before his death. I suppose R&R think St. Hippolytus would be on their side, “resisting Peter to his face” and all that, but that only shows that R&R people are actually at their hearts schismatics, since they identify, not with Hippolytus the Saint, but Hippolytus the Schismatic, since that is presumably why they mention him in the first place.

Hippolytus did not resist Pope Pontianus but was buried on the same day as he and honored by the Church as a fellow martyr, the proof that Hippolytus was not R&R—at least not when he became a saint.

No Priests, No Church

“You have no priests! Where’s your hierarchy? The Gates of Hell have prevailed against your “church”!”

This is one of my favorite objections because I get to actually engage in some metaphysics and quote Aquinas more than I should—I try to keep things around here BC. The argument is based upon the belief that the Church is constituted by the hierarchy, which is absolutely true. And it further depends on the way in which a Vatican Council document is read, which teaches that shepherds and teachers will exist until the end of time. I think I do a good job at addressing that argument here.

Final Thoughts

I think I do a good job of at least beginning to answer these objections, but the truth is conversion happens through prayer, study and having good conversations with people we trust. Hopefully the links I provided will get people like my reader’s R&R friend to start thinking about their position. But the best argument I can think of against R&R is simply that the position is schismatical and so heretical, because it is a denial of the dogma of Papal Primacy.

Q. 1170. Name the different classes of unbelievers and tell what they are.

A. The different classes of unbelievers are:
1. Atheists, who deny there is a God;
2. Deists, who admit there is a God, but deny that He revealed a religion;
3. Agnostics, who will neither admit nor deny the existence of God;
4. Infidels, who have never been baptized, and who, through want of faith, refuse to be baptized;
5. Heretics, who have been baptized Christians, but do not believe all the articles of faith;
6. Schismatics, who have been baptized and believe all the articles of faith, but do not submit to the authority of the Pope;
7. Apostates, who have rejected the true religion, in which they formerly believed, to join a false religion;
8. Rationalists and Materialists, who believe only in material things.

Wanted: Categorical Thinking

/ Robert Robbins
Christ and the Samaritan Woman at the Well
(1796)
Angelica Kauffman

Name Tags

Ninety nine percent of the world’s population could be saved by right reason and thinking out things in terms of categories. The remaining one percent I leave to the Devil on account of their desire to be brainless and so morally base.

There will always be, I suppose, that one percent of people who prefer not to think at all because their thoughts are all wicked and the deeds darker still. But for the most part (I am an optimist), people are good and tend toward good thoughts and sincerely believe their thinking is sound enough. But what I have found, after any extended conversation with my fellow man, is that people tend to think in terms of association instead of kind. Words become, not the depository or home of being or nature, but tags that people can place on things and ideas according to their own inclination, education, social class, or religious preference–or, more than likely–their romantic preference.

If we were honest, we would say to the sister “married” five times over, “You have no husband,” and we should hear from Heaven the words echoing in our ear, “Thou hast said well, she as no husband: For she hath had five husbands: and he whom she now hast, is not her husband.”

Thus, divorced and remarried people place the tag “husband” or “wife” on the person they happen to be living with at that particular moment in time, but tags fall off and get misplaced, and new tags are found, or new people to “marry.”

Likewise other words for other things. “God” is a good one, though what people mean by the tag I don’t really have an idea. Some people will say God is an artist who paints the sky every day. Okay, but then, if God is an artist, does that mean he made you as well as the sky? And if he made you, does that mean he has a plan for your life, a way to go about living it, and one which accords with reason, morals, and law? If God is an artist, he is also a legalist, because all art is a matter of law, insofar as law concerns itself with action in accord with right reason, and all art is a matter of right action. In other words, Art is action in accord with right reason to achieve an end.

But, people content themselves with calling God an artist and then go on with their lives without asking after moral theology or anything remotely constituting an inquiry into the purpose of their lives or how they ought to live or whom they ought to marry. “Artist” and “God” are just tags they place on fleeting feelings of sentimentality or movements of aesthetic appreciation of a colorful sunset. In a way, Chesterton was wrong when he said, “The worst moment for an atheist is when he is really thankful and has no one to thank.” Maybe that was true in Chesterton’s day when atheists actually existed, that noble race of thinking men who stuck to their rationality like a shoe sticks to chewing gum, and deduced that God couldn’t possibly exist because evil did exist, or that, because the world was by all empirical account merely material, there was no room for an immaterial deity. But today, that happy lot of atheists does not exist for the simple reason that imagination has replaced reason as the modus operandi of cognition.

Anything can be God, just as anyone can be one’s spouse, by an act of imagination, or the ability to see what is not actually there. This is done, again, to return to my idea of name tags, by placing a word on things or ideas or people that doesn’t belong, by the force of will, not by intellectual inquiry or discernment in the nature and cause of things.

What is the Church

Finally, then, we come to the idea or thing that is the Church, which is the best example of this kind of thing. People will call the Church a body of believers, or all the baptized, or all those subject to the pope. But the truth is, the Church is all these things.

Q. 489. What is the Church?

A. The Church is the congregation of all those who profess the faith of Christ, partake of the same Sacraments, and are governed by their lawful pastors under one visible Head.

This definition is not a tag we place on an institution. The definition discloses the essence, or what a thing is. Thus there are elements (formal components of a thing’s nature) that make up the Church:

The Church is:

  • Congregation
  • All who profess faith in Christ
  • Partake of same sacraments
  • Governed by lawful pastors
  • Under one Head

 The element of Congregation is pretty easy to figure out, and many churches or groups of people qualify under this element except for, perhaps, the Home Alone adherents, but that is to be expected, since,

“Strike the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn my hand to the little ones. And there shall be in all the earth, saith the Lord, two parts in it shall be scattered, and shall perish: but the third part shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined: and I will try them as gold is tried. They shall call on my name, and I will hear them. I will say: Thou art my people: and they shall say: The Lord is my God,” (Zech. 13: 7-9).

The next element, Profession of Faith, is a great sifter of false followers of Christ.

Q. 156. How shall we know the things which we are to believe?

A. We shall know the things which we are to believe from the Catholic Church, through which God speaks to us.

Q. 157. What do we mean by the “Church, through which God speaks to us”?

A. By the “Church, through which God speaks to us,” we mean the “teaching Church”; that is, the Pope, Bishops, and priests, whose duty it is to instruct us in the truths and practices of our religion.

Q. 158. Where shall we find the chief truths which the Church teaches?

A. We shall find the chief truths which the Church teaches in the Apostles’ Creed.

Q. 159. If we shall find only the “chief truths” in the Apostles’ Creed, where shall we find the remaining truths?

A. We shall find the remaining truths of our Faith in the religious writings and preachings that have been sanctioned by the authority of the Church.

Notice that the Church does not say that we should learn what we are to believe by following bloggers like Michael Matt or Steve Skojec or Mario Derksen or Robert Robbins, for that matter. We are to find those truths of the faith in the religious writings that have been sanctioned by the Church; and none better for basic instruction than the BC.

The next element is Partake of the Same Sacraments, which means what it says, and doesn’t mean more or less. For those who say Home Alone people are not Catholic because they don’t go to the Sacraments, they don’t know what they are talking about. Home Alone Catholics still get married and baptized, and those are the Same Sacraments that Catholics have always enjoyed the spiritual fruits of. True, not all the Sacraments are received by Home Alone Catholics, but that is not required by the definition of Church.

The last two elements are really one, Governed by Lawful Pastors Under One Head, because the pastors cannot be lawful without being under one head. For anyone who has read this blog long enough, you will know that the lawful pastors requirement really eliminates all the Novus Ordo clergy altogether, which may sound ironic, since the Novus Ordo clergy are farther from the Catholic faith than the Traditionalists and Sedevacantist clergy.

Q. 494. What do we mean by “lawful pastors”?

A. By “lawful pastors” we mean those in the Church who have been appointed by lawful authority and who have, therefore, a right to rule us. The lawful pastors in the Church are: Every priest in his own parish; every bishop in his own diocese, and the Pope in the whole Church.

No SSPX or Sede priest fits this definition of lawful pastor. Not one. Moving on.

The objection to Home Alone Catholics is that they must be governed by Pastors, otherwise they are not members of the Church. I think this is a worthy criticism, and it has led one very sincere and thinking individual back to the Novus Ordo because of it, Mr. Eric Hoyle, for whom I have only the highest respect. Still, I think that the necessity of “pastors until the end of time” and the element here of being subject to lawful pastors is conditioned on their actually being pastors in the first place. God doesn’t demand the impossible, and one cannot reason from what is in definition to what is in reality. In other words, essence does not prove existence. That one ought to be subject to lawful pastors in order to belong to the Church does not imply or prove that there are lawful pastors to be subject to. This is actually philosophical common sense, but, alas, too many people have exchanged their faculty of intellect for imagination and volition.

The second part of the last element is Under One Head, which the BC states as follows:

Q. 495. Who is the invisible Head of the Church?

A. Jesus Christ is the invisible Head of the Church.

Q. 496. Who is the visible Head of the Church?

A. Our Holy Father the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, is the Vicar of Christ on earth and the visible Head of the Church.

Thus, it is easy to see that Home Alone Catholics are still subject under the Invisible Head of the Church, Jesus Christ, High Priest in Heaven, but are not subject to the Visible Head of the Church, the Roman Pontiff, simply because there is no pope at this time; were there a pope, Home Alone Catholics would be subject to him foremost, because it is their devotion to the papacy which really separates them from the rest of the world. Novus Ordo people do not have any respect for the papacy as is evidenced by what low men they claim to be and to have been popes. The Traditionalists have no esteem for the papacy, because, in addition to accepting heretics as popes like the Novus Ordo people, they go beyond and bash the man in one breath and in the next call him Holy Father. And the Sedevacantists have so little regard for the Roman Pontiff that they usurp his authority and make bishops without his mandate, and exercise his universal authority throughout the world by operating mass centers and missions across the globe, just as if they were little wandering popes.

So, to conclude this post, I contend that what we need more than ever today is a return to categorial cognition, that is, to think of things in terms of what they are in themselves quite apart from what we imagine them or will them to be. This requires the use of the speculative faculty to be sure, to that part of our soul called the intellect whereby we discover the qualities of things as we observe them with our senses, and, connect those qualities to categories that have a definitive order or essence. Sound difficult? It isn’t, at least not as difficult as going through life with one’s head cut off or in the sand or in an iPhone.

Oh, and here is a quick primer on the Categories to get a sense of what I mean by categorial cognition.

A New Year as Dies Irae Draws Nigh

/ Robert Robbins
“The Last Judgment,” by Flemish painter Hans Memling in 1471.

Echoes of Former Glory

The other day I was watching my son play a new video game he got for Christmas, Halo Wars. For anyone who doesn’t know, Halo was the platform video game for the original X-Box, which came out when I was as old as my son, and has since produced a whole line of games associated with the first in plot, design, and music.

What is very interesting about the game is its nomenclature. There is the Covenant, Heretics, Prophets, the Flood, and other details and plot points which suggest an allegorical parallel with the Christian true-myth, as JRR Tolkien called it. But what most strikes one is the music.

The first theme that one hears as a galactic scene opens up on the menu is the Gregorian chant melody and orchestra theme. Here it is.

It is no exaggeration to say that video games are the new main medium of entertainment and high art, more so than paintings in museums, theaters, opera or drama works, novels, concert halls, etc. The reason is video games, like Halo, are all those things plus the immersive experience of being a part of the plot. Video games are the cultural repository of art and beauty.

While I watched my son play Halo Wars, I was struck by the music. The tune was so haunting and beautiful and seemed to suggest something directly to my soul I could not consciously articulate. Here it is.

I loved the key it was written in, which put me into a reflective and moody mood, contemplating the end of the world, end of everything good and bad and, had I really articulated my emotional response by intelligible words, I would have said I was pondering Judgment Day.

As it turns out, this song was written in e-flat minor, Dorian mode, which was also the same musical setting for the original plainchant melody of the Dies Irae sequence for requiem masses, which is here.

After doing a little digging, I discovered that this ancient melody was literally everywhere. It was to be found in classical music, of course, but also in popular works. Here is a list.

From Disney’s Frozen hit song “Into the Unknown” to “Making Christmas” in Nightmare Before Christmas, the medieval melody of Dies Irae is to be heard just about everywhere—well, almost everywhere. There is one place (apparently) where it doesn’t belong, and that is at funeral masses in Vatican 2 churches.

That’s because, following the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, the Dies Irae was removed from the funeral sequence of the requiem mass, supplanted, no doubt, by some banal Beetles-like pop music which bespoke of happier days ahead for the dearly departed.

Anyway, Archbishop Annibale Bugnini said why the sequence of happy and immemorial status in the liturgy was stricken from the hearts and minds of the faithful.

“They got rid of texts that smacked of a negative spirituality inherited from the Middle Ages,” Bugnini said, because Dies Irae “…overemphasized judgment, fear, and despair. These they replaced with texts urging Christian hope and arguably giving more effective expression to faith in the resurrection, (source).

Whether what replaced the text of Dies Irae is more effective in inculcating the virtue of faith in the resurrection is perhaps proved by the general collapse of faith in the resurrection since the Council. But what concerns me here is the utter inanity of the reformers to replace what has been called one of the most quoted pieces of music in history. Why would they do such a thing? If the text offended, rewrite the text. They rewrote other texts merrily and freely.

No, the reformers hated the influence that the majestic and powerful and beautiful Dies Irae had on the people, which infused into their hearts in an unconscious way what that Halo music infused into my soul—the sense of the world’s end and judgment.

The reforms of Vatican Two have taken away the mass, the music, and the Catholic culture, but they haven’t taken away our faith. We can still discover the beauty and richness of our birthright as Catholics by studying history and looking out for embers like the Dies Irae that still burn with Divine love in the darkness of this world, enflaming our hearts to faith in the resurrection of the dead to judgment.

Folk Music is No Shortcut to Culture

/ Robert Robbins
Nota Bene: Not designed by the “slime” of society.

Laura Wood of the ThinkingHouseWife blog posted this from a folk song book compilation. In it, the author asserts many things, but the point I want to address goes something like this: folk music is superior to today’s popular, commercial music, because yesterday’s music was made to be sung, whereas today’s music is merely made to be listened to.

Setting aside the devices, programs, and social settings in which hosts of people gather together to sing karaoke every week throughout this country and even upon the waves at sea—as I know first hand that even karaoke is performed on aircraft carriers underway—the thesis the author puts forth and which Wood supports is quaint at best and utterly devoid of intellectual merit at worst.

What follows is my first reply to the post, which you can read on Wood’s website, and then a followup which I have published here instead of emailing Wood. She may decide to post my second reply I make here over there if she chooses. Needless to say, the discussion on folk music gets at who we are as a people and touches the fundamentals of life and culture. It is an important discussion, which is why I have taken the time to address it.

Here begins my first reply.

I have read and listened to your recent post regarding folk songs with considerable delight. I am not entirely familiar with this genre of music beyond that instruction on its form and content I received in kindergarten, singing and dancing around chairs.

But thinking on your post a little more, I wonder what you would say about the utter dearth of contemporary folk songs—or is it that folk songs as such is a misnomer, since a melody and lyric do not spring up out of a people as such at all but must come into existence by a single creative mind?

What I am getting at is what “folk songs” are today, taken out of their historic context which gave them birth, are really just the popular songs of today sans record labels. That’s the only difference.

Tell me, what is the lyrical and melodic difference between “Home on the Range” and “A Horse with No Name”? I can’t figure one. Both are melodically simple and undemanding such that anyone could sing along. Both deal with general outdoorsy topics on the surface and existential issues beneath. Both are folksy, earthy, and simple songs that are sung by a popular majority and not a highly cultivated class. The only difference is the latter was created in our lifetime and has a copyright, whereas the former wasn’t and doesn’t.

I just think that the difference between folk songs and popular songs of today is not as clear cut as is supposed by the author, and that there are a lot of questions regarding the origins of folk songs if they are not simply copyrighted original creations by historical individuals time has forgotten the names of.

Here begins my second reply.

I think the points of doubt I raise still stand. Further research on the subject just substantiates what I said, viz., that so called folk songs originate—like “Home on the Range,” for instance, from individual artists and are subsumed into the public domain simply because they are not copyrighted. There is no difference musically and lyrically between a folk song and a popular country song of today. And what differences there may be are necessitated by the fact that art imitates nature, and our present day natures and society are just different—think of Jim Croce’s “Operator” song, incorporating the tragic loss of love with technology of the telephone. I suppose if he had written it by candlelight and spoke of his love through a postman it would be considered folk enough.

But I would like to ask if you yourself agree with your commenter’s following remark: “True democracy is CULTURE! From the slime, the lowest people, comes the brilliance of culture, the dress, the music, the architecture, the food.”

Your author and commenter seem to be under the impression that culture is the product of the lower and uneducated and, in a word, uncultured class. That is oxymoronic and false. Culture, in the sense of fine food, dress, music, art, and architecture, has always come by way of leisure. Now, how can the working poor classes afford leisure enough to be poets and gourmets, Amadeus Mozarts and Thomas Coles? And as for Catholic architecture, what kind of man does Mr. S think designed the architectural plans for the great cathedrals of Europe, the local brewer and potato merchant? 

What lurks behind the discussion of folk music is the idea that democracy in general and Catholic culture in particular is a product of the least common denominator. That is flatly false and disturbs the very order, which is hierarchical, of nature and reality and Catholic culture. If you want culture, if you want Catholic culture, you have to have three things at least: 1. Faith, 2. Education, and 3. Leisure. Those are the basic sine qua non ingredients of Catholic culture. Is it any wonder then there is so little Catholic culture today? 

But I deny that there isn’t culture. There is a lot of culture out there, perhaps so much so that we cannot discern it for what it is, because there is so much of it. Think of all the books, songs, paintings, food, dress, and any number of human creations being produced today, some things of exquisite make. Some are Catholic, but the sum of them are not to be equated with culture; but there are good things being made, things of beauty and goodness and truth if not of the Faith. But not one of them, I solemnly insist and assert, is being made by individuals without education (either formal or autodidactic) or without leisure. And that excludes about 99.9 percent of the population.

Folk music is just popular music. There is nothing special about it, nor anything of essential difference between it and popular music. Any assertion to the contrary is founded upon non-sequiturs. But neither was folk music produced by the ignorant masses but was created, as it is even today, by a set of highly skilled artisans of melody and word.

Obviously there is high culture and low culture, and I have talked about both in this post, because the cause of both is the same, leisure and eduction. If you want Catholic culture, you need to add the Faith. But whether we are talking about folk music, which is low culture, or opera, which is high culture, there remains the necessity of talking about musical theory, harmony, prosody, instrumentation, vocal technique, thespianism, and any number of other technical arts that are required to really pull off a good show. The majority of mankind can sing along to a song but cannot make a song.

Music is something very near and dear to me. I grew up with music in the air all evening long, where my father would blast the popular songs of the day from his little studio and bar room in the basement. So many popular artists and their songs became the soundtrack of my life, such that I did not want for any “folk songs” to sing along to, because I sang along to all the popular songs I heard–just as I am sure many of you reading did the same.

Since then, I have taught myself classical guitar for several years, and have learned to play a handful of concert-level pieces. Unfortunately, I can no longer play because my fistula makes my fretting hand stiff and unable to play longer than a few bars without burning. Since I can no longer play classical guitar, I have started to learn how to sing classically, which is to say in the style and technique of Bel Canto, which the folk music author no doubt would disparage as pretentious, insincere, and sophisticated. Then, again, I suppose a banjo player would think a classical guitarist pretentious, insincere, and sophisticated. But the point I would like to make is that beautiful music takes a lot of work–a lot of work. Truly great singing–like this–takes work, years of practice and mastering a technique.

Folk music of old is not a shortcut to culture. There is no shortcut to culture. It takes work, dedication and sacrifice to learn, develop and cultivate a culture. It doesn’t come naturally, and it doesn’t come from simply swinging your arms to and fro and shouting into the streets and stomping your feet to some merry old tune sailors sang drunk epochs ago. It comes from spending time with a technical body of knowledge, of an art and craft, and study and practice, and not a little inspiration, and sometimes a lifetime of service to its cause. All the great artists of old knew that. We don’t. That is why they were great and we are small.

Spooky Versus Scary: The Fight for the Spirit of Halloween

/ Robert Robbins
This is spooky not scary.

The soul of Halloween is up for grabs like a handful of gummy worms. The hedonistic heathens want Halloween to be scary. Catholics and other normal human beings prefer Halloween to be spooky. Some may think there is little difference between the two, but the reality is, nothing could be more opposed to the spooky than the scary, just as nothing could be more opposed to the body as the spirit.

A harvest moon rises from a cloud over a hillside of corn, as a chill breeze rustles the leaves down an empty street, lined with trees hunched over crawling at the ground with bear branches. Glowing pumpkins grin as you walk door to door to trick or treat. The night is like a blanket you want to hide under but you cannot if you want candy. So you keep walking, keep knocking, until you’ve filled your bucket and received your reward.

That is a picture of spooky. Something more is suggested than the mere material causes of things. There is something meaningful in the sound of moaning wind. There is something to a harvest moon not reducible to the astronomical. There is a big secret behind all the facts of the senses, and Halloween seems to whisper the riddle’s solution a little louder than during other seasons. What that secret is only God and the Saints know—the damned know, too. The living must content themselves with shadows.

I will not paint you a picture of scary, because scaring people is immoral. I can only suggest that what I mean by scary involves bodily harm. That is the difference between being spooked and being scared. The fear of ghosts, of the unknown, is what is meant by spooky. The fear of physical pain is what is meant by being scared.

It is telling that Halloween has become more and more violent precisely when it has become more and more heathen. Without the doctrine of eternity, of an everlasting destiny of either Heaven or Hell, the only alternative is to emphasize the goods and evils of this world, of the sensual delights and agonies of the body. Hence, Halloween today is merely about murder and sex. It has become a hollow shell of its former substantial reality.

But Heaven and Hell do exist, and Saints and the damned are in their respective homes. We hang in the balance. Halloween hangs in the balance. I refuse to let Halloween be perverted by the heathen into something sensual and scary. Halloween is not a holiday about the body but the spirit.

So I plan to make this Halloween as spooky as I can for my children. I refuse to scare them, but I do want to propose an atmosphere of mystery and the eerie which tinges their souls with a fear of the unknown and not merely the painful. Perhaps if they are keen enough to the things of the spirit, they will hear the secret whispered by the moaning wind, by the skeletons, ghosts, and tombstones, that is, the secret of death itself.

The Garden of God

/ Robert Robbins
Garden of the Gods

There is a quote attributed to St. Augustine which says, “The nature of God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.” Whether that is an accurate attribution or not, the quote itself is quite astounding. The BC says it more pithily though:

Q. 166. Where is God?

A. God is everywhere.

Driving through the Shawnee National Forest yesterday on assignment to take photographs, I hiked to the best spot on the forest to see fall colors. There on the rock overlooking the world was a vista alive with all the colors of autumn, the beauty of God’s creation.

Afterward, as I made my way back to the Ranger Station, a thought came out of nowhere: God was present to me always: Just a simple thought, which did not insist upon itself too much, but which had the force behind it like an earthquake.

As little town and little hill and field passed by out my window, I looked out with that simple thought in mind. If God is everywhere, all things are present to God, all things, that is, are within His compass and control. Nothing happens unless He says so, not a single sunbeam streams through a cloud without His say so. That is a mystical thought.

Anyway, as I drove with these thoughts and questions in mind, another question passed through my consciousness: “What would you have me see,” to which God–He is the Eternal Jester–presented to my physical vision not a split second later the road sign named, quite literally, Catholic Church Rd.

Not a moment after that, I noticed St. Joseph Catholic Church just off the road. Now, I could have interpreted that thought and scene as signs that I should back to Church, return to a parish near me, and be a Novus Ordo Catholic again. I could have, but then I must understand the hierarchy of information. I have demonstrable evidence from the BC–the Rule of Faith–that the present Roman church is a false sect. I know that with certainty. So the very special vision I had yesterday could not have been mystical evidence in favor of a return to the Novus Ordo.

So what was the vision? I am thinking aloud here, but I think it was the affirmation that the simple thought with which I began was true, and that God was substantiating it by direct experiential evidence. God was revealing Himself a bit. There was a moment of time in which I could peak through the veil thinly concealing His awesome reality. I have had such experiences before, what I think Thomas A. Kempis calls the Divine Visitation. They are gifts, and I surely did not deserve such a visit.

“God is everywhere,” the BC teaches us. What do we make of that from day to day? How do we behave, what do we think, with that earthquaking thought? These are thoughts to ponder. A profound joy follows the Divine Visitation, which gives proofs of its origin. I encourage you all to give the BC lesson on God’s immanent locality time for thinking on it.

Whoever named the gem of the Shawnee had it all wrong. The better name would have been, The Garden of God, but then that name would have applied to everywhere.

Baltimore Catechism Now on CatholicEclipsed

/ Robert Robbins
Home Alone Catholic being examined on his catechism by the Church.

Harping on the Same Old Tune

For those who have been reading this blog for any period of time, you will no doubt be aware that I have relied heavily upon the catechism as the chief foundation and formation of the faith. And where else should I look for instruction?

Q. 159. If we shall find only the “chief truths” in the Apostles’ Creed, where shall we find the remaining truths?

A. We shall find the remaining truths of our Faith in the religious writings and preachings that have been sanctioned by the authority of the Church.

The Baltimore Catechism is one such document that has been sanctioned by the authority of the Church. It is true that there are many good and holy things to read out there, and I am not one to say we should only read the catechism. But I have encountered far too much error, far too much deviation from the teachings of the Church, from far too many “learned” people, even those with a website and hundreds of web articles to their names, not to insist upon a return to fundamental and simple truths found in a catechism.

I harp on the same old tune of the catechism for the same reason that I recite the rosary over and over or sing the Salve Regina over and over or do anything else of our holy religion repetitively. I do so because that is what Mother Church would have me do. I can honestly say I do not have the catechism memorized. Not even close, and I probably never will. That is difficult to do as an adult. But it was the expectation of the Church for children to learn their catechism by heart, and to be able to recite verbatim their lessons, say, on the Trinity.

So I will not say that those reading this–presumably adults, probably even middle-aged or older–must learn their catechism by rote. But I do insist that one should become intimately familiar with all the lessons of their catechism, to take time throughout the weeks of one’s life, suitably on Sunday, to read a lesson, meditate on it, and think on it often throughout the work-week.

To help facilitate that end, I have taken the time to do what I should have done a long time ago. I have put the complete Baltimore Catechism on this website as its own page, which you can access through the main menu.

Knowing our catechism has always been the duty of Catholics, but today when the crisis of faith has reached a pitch of intensity rivaling the shrieks from Hell, it is infinitely more incumbent upon us as Home Alone Catholics to study and even memorize what we can of our catechism. How shall we combat the error, for instance, of those who say that Sedevacantist chapels are licit in the time of necessity? The BC answers:

Q. 1004. Can bishops, priests and other ministers of the Church always exercise the power they have received in Holy Orders?

A. Bishops, priests and other ministers of the Church cannot exercise the power they have received in Holy Orders unless authorized and sent to do so by their lawful superiors. The power can never be taken from them, but the right to use it may be withdrawn for causes laid down in the laws of the Church, or for reasons that seem good to those in authority over them. Any use of sacred power without authority is sinful, and all who take part in such ceremonies are guilty of sin.

No Sedevacantist clergy were ever authorized and sent by their lawful superiors to administer the sacraments. That is the death knell for all the independent chapels and missions operating outside of Rome. Further, the BC states “Any use of the sacred power without authority is sinful,” which covers even those times of necessity.

What about the Recognize and Resist (R&R), the Remnant, OnePeterFive, LifeSiteNews, and such like? How does the BC respond to those who say authority must be recognized but resisted if that authority errs or legislates what is unlawful or harmful?

Well, actually, there are two glaring errors here, both of which are about as un-Catholic as Martin Luther. The first is that the Catholic Church could possibly legislate anything harmful or erroneous. The BC states:

Q. 528. How do you know that the Church can not err?

A. I know that the Church can not err because Christ promised that the Holy Ghost would remain with it forever and save it from error. If, therefore, the Church has erred, the Holy Ghost must have abandoned it and Christ has failed to keep His promise, which is a thing impossible.

The Church can no more err in faith or morals as a lead balloon could fly. It defies the laws of spiritual physics. Because the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, it is blasphemy to say, as the R&R crowd do say, that the Roman Pontiff and the Second Vatican Council taught error.

Q. 572. From whom does the Church derive its undying life and infallible authority?

A. The Church derives its undying life and infallible authority from the Holy Ghost, the spirit of truth, who abides with it forever.

The second error of R&R is the idea that one can resist a legitimate authority. The BC defines authority as follows:

Q. 523. What is authority?

A. Authority is the power which one person has over another so as to be able to justly exact obedience. Rulers have authority over their subjects, parents over their children, and teachers over their scholars.

Q. 524. From whom must all persons derive whatever lawful authority they possess?

A. All persons must derive whatever lawful authority they possess from God Himself, from whom they receive it directly or indirectly. Therefore, to disobey our lawful superiors is to disobey God Himself, and hence such disobedience is always sinful.

Q. 525. What do you mean by the authority of the Church?

A. By the authority of the Church I mean the right and power which the Pope and the Bishops, as the successors of the Apostles, have to teach and to govern the faithful.

Anyone who knows their catechism couldn’t fall for R&R because it is intrinsically non-Catholic. It is Catholic to submit to legitimate authority like a pope, bishop or priest, because these are lawful superiors, and to disobey them would mean disobeying God.

The only reasonable conclusion to make is that the Second Vatican Council was not Catholic, because we know the council taught error which is a thing impossible for the Catholic Church but quite within the realm of possibility for a non-Catholic sect headed up by a non-Catholic heretic.

Q. 547. In whom are these attributes found in their fullness?

A. These attributes are found in their fullness in the Pope, the visible Head of the Church, whose infallible authority to teach bishops, priests, and people in matters of faith or morals will last to the end of the world.

It defies Catholic Sense to say John 23, Paul 6, JP2, B16 or Francis 1 are possessed with the infallible authority to teach the Church in faith and morals when these men have done all they can to spread error in the faith and promote false worship.

I could go on and on refuting the errors of the day from the BC, and no doubt I shall continue to do so in future posts as long as my fingers are able to type. But my point here is that we have to have a firm grasp of the fundamentals of the faith before we can profess to know or to teach or to dispute with the heretic, apostate, or infidel.

May God reward a prayerful study of the catechism with grace and wisdom enough to fight the good fight and keep the faith till the end.

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