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The Blessing of a True, Catholic Liberal Education — Part III

Posted on by Catholic Candle

Catholic Candle note: Below is part 3 of the article concerning the best type of education, which is a Catholic Liberal Education. Do not confuse this education with many university programs called “liberal arts” but which are full of fluff, falsehood, and aimless so-called “cultural enrichment” courses and “humanities”.

A liberal education also does not refer to liberalism, nor is a true liberal education an indoctrination into that error of liberalism or political correctness. In fact, a true Catholic Liberal Education is the best antidote to the errors of liberalism.

Previously, in part 1 of this article,1 we examined the problems we see in modern education.

  • Modern colleges do not improve the quality of their students’ minds and their thinking ability much or at all.


  • Most “education” is merely job training, fluff courses, and/or leftist indoctrination.


  • The students are taught to sound like someone in their field but they do little thinking and more memorizing.


  • Grade “inflation” and degree “inflation” is rampant. Grades and academic degrees do not mean much anymore.

In part 2 of this article,2 we examined, in general, what education is. We considered the human soul and the perfection of its highest faculty (power) – the intellect – which is immaterial. We saw that our intellects are perfected through knowing eternal, unchangeable truths and their causes.

Because we saw the importance of perfecting the intellect, we could naturally ask who should perfect his intellect? In part 3 of this article (below), we consider that question.



Who Should Perfect His Intellect?

Because we have seen the importance of perfecting our intellects, the question naturally arises, then, who should obtain this genuine and best education? The answer is: everyone who has an intellect, … or more precisely, whoever has the use of reason. And he should do this according to his abilities. The reason for this answer is that:

  • God created the human intellect and made it the highest faculty in all humans.


  • God intends that we use the gifts He gives, especially the higher gifts, so therefore God expects humans to especially perfect their intellects.


  • All intellects are perfected by knowing eternal, universal truth, which is the good of the intellect.


  • Therefore, God intends that all humans perfect their intellects by learning such eternal, universal truth.3


Women and Girls, as well as Men and Boys, Should Perfect Their Intellects.

Some people fail to understand this crucial principle about how we should lead our life and what should be our principal concerns and goals of life. They hold the false conclusion that possession of universal truth is only for the elite few.

Bishop Richard N. Williamson greatly erred in this way when he said the following:

True universities are for ideas, ideas are not for true girls, and so universities are not for true girls.4

He said ideas are not for girls. How wrong he was!

  • God created the human intellect and made it the highest faculty in women and girls (as well as in men and boys).


  • God intends that women and girls use the gifts He gives, especially the higher gifts, so God expects women and girls to especially perfect their intellects, more than the other faculties of their souls.


  • All intellects are perfected by knowing eternal, universal truth, which is the good of the intellect.


  • Therefore, God intends that women and girls must perfect their intellects with eternal, universal truth.

Further, we see Bishop Williamson’s position is wrong for these five reasons:

  1. His (false) position opposes the practice of the Catholic Church which has founded so many women’s colleges, e.g., St. Mary’s College in South Bend, Indiana. This Catholic women’s college was founded before 1920 by the Sisters of the Holy Cross, with the help of Fr. Edward Sorin (the founder of Notre Dame) and the priests of the Congregation of the Holy Cross.


  2. God made a man and his wife to be the closest of friends.5 But a man and his wife could not possibly be best friends if her mind was devoid of truth: she would not understand or appreciate him and there would be nothing in her mind for him to appreciate. This would frustrate them both and prevent true friendship, leaving only a practical familiarity on a low, non-spiritual level.


  3. In fact, women and girls naturally all do seek the truth on high matters. It would be impossible for them not to do so. As St. Thomas and Aristotle teach and as our experience proves, all persons “by nature desire to know”.6 That is, all persons philosophize7 even if it is often not called that. In other words, they consider and conclude about many important issues and topics in the natural and supernatural order.

    Just as when a patch of land is cleared of vegetation, it will not remain without plants. If that land is not planted with good crops, it will become infested with weeds. Likewise, with the human intellect. If the “garden” of the intellect is not cultivated and filled with great truths (i.e. the “good crops”), then the intellect will be infested with the “weeds” of noxious errors.

    Just as land will be filled with good crops or with weeds, likewise, the human intellect will be filled either way – with great truth or “poisonous” errors. Thus, the intellects of women and girls should be perfected by learning great truths.

  4. In light of this reason (immediately above): since the mind will not stay empty, then for the sake of the spousal friendships that God intends, the wife’s mind must be filled with important truths (as her husband’s mind should be also) and should not be allowed to fill with “weeds” since her mind being filled with errors is a greater obstacle to spousal friendship than even would be the mind of the hypothetical wife (in the second bullet point above) who has no ideas at all.

  5. The woman/wife is an important educator of the children – especially in today’s world – and she cannot do this while her mind is an “empty box” (or is full of errors).

Plainly, Bishop Williamson erred greatly! Thus, we see that the truth must fill and perfect the minds of women and girls (as well as men and boys). They must all perfect their intellects according to their ability, by learning universal, eternal truth, especially about the highest things.


Let Us Consider Another Aspect of Bishop Williamson’s False Position: Are Modern Universities REALLY “True Universities”?

Notice another error embodied in the position of Bishop Williamson, viz., he has the false belief that universities are now really places for high learning (as the best of them used to be). He writes about whether girls should attend “true universities”?8

But, as better-informed persons know, universities nowadays are largely dens of errors, iniquity, and political correctness. In contrast, Bishop Williamson refers to these places as if they were places of truth and true higher education. When a student is as uninformed on this as Bishop Williamson indicates that he is, then such a student would expect high learning there. He would then be caught off-guard and be all-the-more unprepared for the onslaught of the devils’ attacks there, seeking to corrupt any good which is possessed by the student at the time when he enrolls at the university.

To the extent that universities are dens of error and leftist indoctrination, universities are not for anyone – even men. By contrast, perfecting one’s mind with a true Catholic Liberal Education in the highest truths, is for everybody according to his ability.

This true Catholic Liberal Education is for women, each according to her abilities, because it makes a woman wise in important ways. But as experience shows us, and as St. Thomas teaches, “the discretion of reason predominates” in man more than in woman. Summa, Ia, Q.92, a.1, ad 2. Therefore, because a man is even more logical than a woman, a true Catholic Liberal Education perfects his intellect even more than it does hers.

Although men and women are both rational, men think more abstractly. Women are more emotional – (they are more inclined to bring personality and feeling into their reasoning). Thus, men are able to advance further in the two types of wisdom provided in a Catholic Liberal Education:

  1. One kind of wisdom is good apart from the practical life we live. This type of wisdom is to know the highest truths about God (as well as other high truths) because they perfect the intellect and because they are so magnificent and worth knowing in themselves; and

  2. The second kind of wisdom is practical and is directed toward living more fully the good life according to our rational nature, e.g., the moral sciences of ethics and politics (in the true sense which will be discussed in a later part of this article).

Summa, Ia, Q.45., a.1, Respondeo; & Summa, Ia, Q.45., a.3, Respondeo.

Both types of wisdom perfect the intellect, so men and women should pursue both. (We will treat this topic more fully in a later part of this article.)

Whereas this Catholic Liberal Education greatly benefits both men and women, it helps man even more to grow in wisdom than it does a woman and increases his fitness to be her head and the head of their family, as God intended.


A Question Arises

Since modern universities do not provide a true education, is there ever any reason for men or women to attend them? In the next part of this article, we will examine that question.


To be continued …

3 This is one of many ways we can see that Catholics have the duty to study their Faith during their entire life.

4 Quoted from Girls at the University, Bishop Richard Williamson’s Letter to Friends and Benefactors of St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary, Winona, September 1, 2001 (emphasis added).

5

Here is one way St. Thomas explains this truth:


The greater the friendship, the firmer and the more lasting it is. Now, between husband and wife there seems to be the greatest friendship; for they join … for the sharing of all of home life; hence a sign of this is that man leaves even his father and mother for the sake of his wife.


Summa Contra Gentiles, St. Thomas Aquinas, ch.123, §6 (emphasis added).


Again, God intends the friendship of a husband and wife to be the closest and greatest of all friendships. Summa Supp., Q.44, a.2, ad 3. This friendship between man and wife is the closest friendship because it is the only one complementary under the natural law (i.e., between the different sexes) and which is a union in the bond of a Sacrament, resulting in the Great Life Work of women/mothers.


Here is one way St. John Chrysostom explains this truth:

For there is no relationship between man and man so close as that between man and wife, if they be joined together as they should be.

For there is nothing which so welds our life together as the love of man and wife. For this, many will lay aside even their arms; for this, they will give up life itself.

St. John Chrysostom, Sermon 20 on Ephesians, 5:22-24.

6 St. Thomas Aquinas, Lectures on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, first lecture right at the beginning.

7 St. Thomas Aquinas, Lectures on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Book 1, chapters 1-2.

8 Quoted from Girls at the University, Bishop Richard Williamson’s Letter to Friends and Benefactors of St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary, Winona, September 1, 2001.

Vatican II is Not Infallible

Posted on by Catholic Candle

Catholic Candle reminder: All Catholics have a duty to continually study the Catholic Faith their entire lives.  This involves more than spiritual reading to use in meditation and prayer (although that is very important too). 

 

We must study Catholic doctrine and the refutation of the principal errors against our Faith and Catholic morals.  Catholic Candle attempts to help you do this.  Therefore, we suggest you read articles such as the one below, even if you are already convinced of its conclusion, to help you to more thoroughly understand, and to better teach and defend, Catholic Faith and morals. 

 

 

 

Many confused and deceived “mainstream” Catholics (and also many sedevacantists) wrongly believe that all councils of the Catholic Church are infallible. 

 

Because of this error, confused and deceived “mainstream” Catholics conclude they must accept Vatican II’s liberal teachings because Vatican II is a council of the Catholic Church. 

 

Because of this same error, the sedevacantists conclude that, because Vatican II errs, it cannot be a council of the Catholic Church and the council fathers (including the pope) cannot be the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.

 

The truth is that Vatican II was a real council of the Catholic Church but that none of its teachings are infallible.  Therefore, “mainstream” Catholics mistakenly conclude they must accept its errors, and sedevacantists falsely conclude that the Catholic Church has no hierarchy.

 

There are four ways to see that the Second Vatican Council is not infallible:

 

1.    It would be irrational and unjust if Vatican II were infallible because the council does not show it is infallible.

2.    Vatican II was (deliberately) made ambiguous and contradictory and so cannot be infallible.

 

3.    Vatican II is full of doctrinal novelties and it is impossible for any novelties to be infallible.

 

4.    Even the council fathers and popes during and after Vatican II knew that Vatican II is not infallible.

 

Below, we discuss each of these four reasons.

 

 

1.   It would be irrational and unjust if Vatican II were infallible because the council does not show it is infallible.

The Catholic Church only teaches doctrines infallibly so that Catholics know with complete certitude that those particular statements are true.  Thus, it would be irrational to suppose the Church teaches any doctrine infallibly if She does not clearly make known that it is infallible and that Catholics must believe it.

 

Further, Catholics are more culpable for denying (or doubting) an infallible teaching because that teaching comes to us with the highest certitude.  Thus, it would be unjust if the Church taught something infallible without clearly manifesting this infallibility, because Catholics would have no warning of the graver consequences of denying that teaching. 

 

Thus, reason and justice require the Church to clearly indicate when a particular teaching is infallible.  Even Vatican II authorities (the council’s Theological Commission and also its General Secretary) recognized this principle of reason and justice, when they declared:

 

In view of conciliar practice and the pastoral purpose of the present Council, this sacred Synod defines matters of faith or morals as binding on the Church only when the Synod itself openly declares so.[1]

 

The council never openly declared anything infallible.  (However, the council’s authorities phrased the above declaration in the way they did because the council was still ongoing and they allowed for the possibility – which never happened – that the council might teach something infallible before the end of the council’s final session.)

 

Even prior Church councils (which did teach infallibly), explained and taught many things non-infallibly, which then led up to defining certain, specific, infallibly-true statements.  Immediately below, we give examples of the language used to plainly declare an infallible truth, during the last two Church Councils before Vatican II.

 

Here is an example how the Council of Trent plainly showed the infallibility of one of its teachings:

 

[T]he sacred and holy, oecumenical and general Synod of Trent, … most strictly forbidding that any persons henceforth presume to believe, preach, or teach, otherwise than as by this present decree is defined and declared: … If anyone saith, that man may be justified before God by his own works, whether done through the teaching of human nature, or that of the law, without the grace of God through Jesus Christ; let him be anathema.[2]

 

Here is an example how the First Vatican Council plainly showed the infallibility of one of its teachings:

 

[W]e teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that when the Roman pontiff speaks ex cathedra, that is, when,

 

1.    in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians,

 

2.    in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority,

 

3.    he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole church,

 

he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals.  Therefore, such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the church, irreformable.  So then, should anyone, which God forbid, have the temerity to reject this definition of ours: let him be anathema.[3]

 

This infallible declaration of the First Vatican Council shows how clearly a pope or a Church council must manifest his/its infallibility if the Church is thereby binding all Catholics to profess the particular doctrine.

 

 

The contrast in the language of Vatican II shows it is not speaking infallibly.

 

Because of the gravity of denying such infallible teachings, the councils anathematized (condemned) anyone who denied such teaching.  By contrast, Vatican II specifically avoided condemning anyone. 

 

Pope John XXIII declared that Vatican II would condemn no one, stating:

 

The Church has always opposed … errors. Frequently she has condemned them with the greatest severity.  Nowadays, however, the Spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity.  She considers that she meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of her teaching rather than by condemnations.[4]

 

Council Father, Bishop Rudolf Graber, declared that the Second Vatican “Council … refrained from … anathemas … [in contrast to what] previous Church assemblies have done”.[5]

 

All Church councils before Vatican II clearly indicated when they taught infallibly, as reason and justice require.  Vatican II never showed it taught infallibly.  Thus, reason and justice require that Vatican II’s teachings are not infallible.

 

 

2.  Vatican II was (deliberately) made ambiguous and contradictory and so cannot be infallible.

 

No one is able to accept contradictory (i.e., opposite) teachings because the human mind cannot hold opposites about the same thing at the same time.  For example, no one can hold that the same man is both dead and not dead at the same time. 

 

No one is able to accept ambiguous teaching, i.e., teaching without one clear meaning, because the human mind cannot hold a statement without knowing which meaning the statement has.

 

Vatican II is full of such contradictory and ambiguous teachings, which are often called “time bombs” (viz., statements quietly inserted into the council’s documents, which the modernists later “detonated” when they were ready to use these statements to cause harm).  To see hundreds of these “time bombs” in one key Vatican II document, read Lumen Gentium Annotated, by the Editors of Quanta Cura Press, © 2013.[6]

 

Not only do the contradictions and ambiguities of Vatican II’s “time bombs” refute that Vatican II taught infallibly, but Vatican II participants admit that they knowingly inserted these “time bombs”.

 

 

The Bragging Testimony of Fr. Chenu

 

Fr. Marie-Dominique Chenu was an influential French “expert” at Vatican II.  After the council, he wrote a book explaining how the experts deliberately inserted ambiguities and contradictions into the council’s documents.  In his book, he recounted one particular example of this nefarious practice:

 

The gossip is that the experts directed the Council; indeed, this is not so wrong.  I recall a minuscule but revealing episode.  While the Decree on the Laymen [Apostolicam actuositatem] was being discussed, I noticed that it still had a paragraph entirely permeated with the notion of a ‘mandate’ given to laymen by the Hierarchy, inspired by a dualist conception – the Church on one side and the world on the other.  I met with another French expert and we agreed that this was bad.

 

But that paragraph had already been discussed and adopted by the commission.  It was impossible, therefore, to change it.  So, we wrote a text to be added that corrected it.  It was a second paragraph that said more or less the opposite of the preceding one.  The first in a certain way affirmed dualism.  But the second stated that the action of the Church must go beyond it.

 

The French Bishops presented our new text as their own, and it was

adopted.[7]

 

 

The Testimony of Cardinal Kasper

 

Cardinal Walter Kasper admitted that contradictions and ambiguities are “in many places” in Vatican II’s teaching.  Here are his words:

 

In many places, [the Council Fathers] had to find compromise formulas, in which, often, the positions of the majority are located immediately next to those of the minority, designed to delimit them.  Thus, the conciliar texts themselves have a huge potential for conflict, [and] open the door to a selective reception in either direction.[8]

 

Because (as was said above) no one is obliged to accept contradictory or ambiguous teaching, no one is obliged to accept Vatican II’s teaching because it is not clear and decisive, as is necessary for any infallible statement.

 

 

3.  Vatican II is full of doctrinal novelties and it is impossible for any novelties to be infallible.

 

New doctrines are heresy and are false.[9]  It is impossible for any new doctrine to be infallible Catholic teaching because the Church may only teach what Christ handed down through the Apostles.

 

Any of Vatican II’s teachings which are not part of Catholic Tradition are new and so cannot be infallible.

 

Below, we set forth the testimony of the hierarchy that the teachings of Vatican II are new.

 

 

The testimony of Pope John Paul II:

 

[W]hat constitutes the substantial “novelty” of the Second Vatican Council, in line with the legislative tradition of the Church, especially in regard to ecclesiology, constitutes likewise the “novelty” of the new Code [of canon law].

 

Among the elements which characterize the true and genuine image of the Church, we should emphasize especially the following: the doctrine in which the Church is presented as the People of God (cf. Lumen Gentium, no. 2), and authority as a service (cf. ibid., no. 3); the doctrine in which the Church is seen as a “communion”, and which, therefore, determines the relations which should exist between the particular Churches and the universal Church, and between collegiality and the primacy; the doctrine, moreover, according to which all the members of the People of God, in the way suited to each of them, participate in the threefold office of Christ: priestly, prophetic and kingly. With this teaching there is also linked that which concerns the duties and rights of the faithful, and particularly of the laity; and finally, the Church’s commitment to ecumenism.  …

 

[T]he Second Vatican Council has … elements both old and new, and the new consists precisely in the elements which we have enumerated ….

 

Pope John Paul II, Sacrae Disciplinae Leges, January 25, 1983 (emphasis added).

Pope John Paul II also admitted the council’s novelties in these words:

 

Indeed, the extent and depth of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council call for a renewed commitment to deeper study in order to reveal clearly the Council’s continuity with Tradition, especially in points of doctrine which, perhaps because they are new, have not yet been well understood by some sections of the Church.

 

Ecclesia Dei, (1988), 5.b.

 

 

The testimony of Pope Benedict XVI:

 

In the first year of his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI said:

 

[W]ith the Second Vatican Council, the time came when broad new thinking was required.

 

December 22, 2005 Christmas address (emphasis added).

 

Before he became pope, Cardinal Ratzinger taught:

 

If it is desirable to offer a diagnosis of the text [of the Vatican II document, Gaudium et Spes] as a whole, we might say that (in conjunction with the texts on religious liberty and world religions) it is a revision of the Syllabus of Pius IX, a kind of countersyllabus.  …   Let us be content to say that the text serves as a countersyllabus and, as such, represents, on the part of the Church, an attempt at an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789 [by the Masonic French Revolution].[10]

 

Obviously, whatever “counters” the Catholic Church’s prior teaching, must be a new teaching which the Church did not previously teach.  Yet (former) Pope Benedict XVI described some of the main teachings of Vatican II as countering the Church’s prior teaching!  Thus, clearly, Vatican II’s new teachings could not be infallible.

 

 

The testimony of Pope Paul VI:

 

The new position adopted by the Church with regard to the realities of this earth is henceforth well known by everyone ….  [T]he Church agrees to recognize the new principle to be put into practice ….  [T]he Church agrees to recognize the world as ‘self-sufficient’; she does not seek to make the world an instrument for her religious ends …. [11]

 

Further, Pope Paul VI also referred to the “newness” of the doctrine of the Second Vatican Council, in a general audience on January 12, 1966.[12]

 

 

Statements Made by other Members of the Hierarchy

 

Other members of the hierarchy have also made clear statements concerning the novelty and rupture of the teachings of Vatican II.

 

Near the close of the council, Cardinal Congar stated:

 

What is new in this teaching [regarding religious liberty] in relation to the doctrine of Leo XIII and even of Pius XII, although the movement was already beginning to make itself felt, is the determination of the basis peculiar to this liberty, which is sought not in the objective truth of moral or religious good, but in the ontological quality of the human person.[13]

 

Pope John Paul II appointed Yves Congar as a cardinal to recognize Cardinal Congar’s lifelong dedication to the conciliar revolution.  Cardinal Congar likened Vatican II to the triumph of the communists in Russia, calling Vatican II the “October Revolution” in the Church.[14]  By this parallel, Cardinal Congar is telling us that Vatican II overthrew the established order in the Catholic Church.  Further, by making this particular parallel, Cardinal Congar saw fit to compare Vatican II to the triumph of the anti-God communists in Russia! 

 

Cardinal Suenens compared Vatican II to a different anti-God revolution.  He made the same parallel as (former) Pope Benedict XVI did (quoted above), between Vatican II and the anti-God, Masonic French Revolution, saying that Vatican II was 1789 in the Church.[15]

 

By comparing Vatican II with a communist or Masonic revolution, all three of these cardinals are stating that Vatican II’s teaching is revolutionary, new, and therefore fallible.

 

 

Conclusion Regarding the Non-Infallibility of Vatican II’s Teachings based on their Newness

The Catholic Church may only hand down the doctrines She received from the Apostles.  The Catholic Church has always condemned new doctrines as heresy.

 

Pope John Paul II, (former) Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Paul VI (as well as some cardinals), have all stated that Vatican II teaches new doctrines.  They are correct that Vatican II’s teachings are new, as is obvious when comparing those teachings to the traditional teachings of the Catholic Church.  See, e.g., the hundreds of new teachings contained in one of the key Vatican II documents, Lumen Gentium.  Lumen Gentium Annotated, by the Editors of Quanta Cura Press, © 2013[16] (comparing these new council teachings to the opposite teachings of the Catholic Church’s Fathers, Doctors, and popes). 

 

Because Vatican II’s teachings are new, they are fallible and the Church condemns them as heresy.

 

 

4.  Even the council fathers and popes during and after Vatican II knew that Vatican II is not infallible.

 

The popes and other members of the hierarchy not only considered Vatican II’s teachings to be new but also not infallible.

 

 

The Testimony of Pope Paul VI

 

Pope Paul VI, who presided over three of the council’s four sessions, denied clearly and repeatedly that the teachings of Vatican II are infallible. 

 

For example, Pope Paul VI stated shortly after the close of Vatican II:

 

In view of the pastoral nature of the Council, it avoided any extraordinary statement of dogmas that would be endowed with the note of infallibility.[17]

 

When concluding the council, Pope Paul VI plainly denied that Vatican II ever taught infallibly:

 

Today we are concluding the Second Vatican Council.  …  But one thing must be noted here, namely, that the teaching authority of the Church, even though not wishing to issue extraordinary dogmatic pronouncements, has made thoroughly known its authoritative teaching on a number of questions which today weigh upon man’s conscience and activity, descending, so to speak, into a dialogue with him, but ever preserving its own authority and force; it has spoken with the accommodating friendly voice of pastoral charity; its desire has been to be heard and understood by everyone; it has not merely concentrated on intellectual understanding but has also sought to express itself in simple, up-to-date, conversational style, derived from actual experience and a cordial approach which make it more vital, attractive and persuasive; it has spoken to modern man as he is.[18]

 

Pope Paul VI again highlighted the non-infallible, non-definitive character of Vatican II in a general audience in 1966: 

 

There are those who ask what authority, what theological qualification, the Council intended to give to its teachings, knowing that it avoided issuing solemn dogmatic definitions backed by the Church’s infallible teaching authority.  The answer is known by those who remember the conciliar declaration of March 6, 1964, repeated on November 16, 1964.  In view of the pastoral nature of the Council, it avoided proclaiming in an extraordinary manner any dogmas carrying the mark of infallibility but it still provided its teaching with the authority of the Ordinary Magisterium which must be accepted with docility according to the mind of the Council concerning the nature and aims of each document.[19]

 

 

The Testimony of (former) Pope Benedict XVI

 

(Former) Pope Benedict XVI, as Cardinal Ratzinger, also stated that Vatican II was not infallible:

 

[T]here is a mentality of narrow views that isolates Vatican II ….  There are many accounts of it, which give the impression that from Vatican II onward, everything has been changed, and what preceded it has no value or, at best, has value only in the light of Vatican II.  …  The truth is that this particular Council defined no dogma at all, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council; and yet many treat it as though it had made itself into a sort of superdogma which takes away the importance of all the rest.[20]

 

 

The Testimony of Pope John XXIII

 

Pope John XXIII explained:

 

The salient point of this Council is not, therefore, a discussion of one article or another of the fundamental doctrine of the Church, [but to study and expound doctrine] through methods of research and through the literary forms of modern thought.[21]

 

 

The Testimony of Various Cardinals and Bishops

 

Below, is the testimony of all council fathers whose testimony we could find, unanimously denying that Vatican II ever taught infallibly.

 

 

The Testimony of John Cardinal Heenan of England 

 

[The Second Vatican Council] deliberately limited its own objectives. There were to be no specific definitions.  Its purpose from the first was pastoral renewal within the Church and a fresh approach to the outside.[22]

 

 

The Testimony of Eugene Cardinal Tisserant, on Sept. 9, 1964:


We must also restate that this ecumenical Council, as the sovereign pontiff John XXIII has stated many times, has no intention to pronounce itself on … doctrinal issues; but its specific goal consists in giving to the pastoral zeal of the Church a new boost, so that it becomes more active and more fruitful in the dioceses, in parishes and in all mission territories, and also among all religious families and lay associations.

 

 

The Testimony of Cardinal Biffi

 

In his 2007 autobiographical work, Cardinal Biffi stated that:

 

John XXIII aspired after a council that … avoided formulating definitive teachings that would be obligatory for all.  And in fact, this original indication was continually followed.[23]

The Testimony of Cardinal Felici, through Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre

 

[A]t the end of the [council] sessions, we asked Cardinal Felici [the Council’s General Secretary], “Can you not give us what the theologians call the “‘theological note’ of the Council?”   He replied, “We have to distinguish according to the schemas and the chapters those which have already been the subject of dogmatic definitions in the past; as for the declarations which have a novel character, we have to make reservations.[24]

 

 

The Testimony of Bishop B.C. Butler of England

 

Not all teachings emanating from a pope or Ecumenical Council are infallible. There is no single proposition of Vatican II – except where it is citing previous infallible definitions – which is in itself infallible.[25]

 

 Here is Bishop Butler again: “Vatican II gave us no new dogmatic definitions….”[26]

 

 

The Testimony of Bishop Rudolf Graber

 

Since the Council was aiming primarily at a pastoral orientation and hence refrained from making dogmatically binding statements or disassociating itself, as previous Church assemblies have done, from errors and false doctrines by means of clear anathemas, many questions took on an opalescent ambivalence which provided a certain amount of justification for those who speak of the spirit of the Council.[27]

 

 

The Testimony of Bishop Thomas Morris

 

I was relieved when we were told that this Council was not aiming at defining or giving final statements on doctrine, because a statement of doctrine has to be very carefully formulated and I would have regarded the Council documents as tentative and likely to be reformed.[28]

 

 

Conclusion to this entire article

 

Vatican II is not infallible because:

 

1.    God does not “trick” us.  The Holy Ghost would not allow any infallible teachings which were unreasonable and unjust, as would be any infallible teaching which we could not clearly recognize as such.

 

2.    Vatican II was (deliberately) made ambiguous and contradictory and cannot be infallible because the human mind cannot hold opposites about the same thing at the same time and also cannot hold a statement which is ambiguous and so whose infallible meaning cannot be discerned.

 

3.    Vatican II cannot be infallible because its teachings are new (and new teachings cannot be infallible).

 

4.    The popes and council fathers repeatedly assure us that Vatican II is not infallible.


[1]           March 6, 1964 declaration of the Council’s Theological Commission, repeated by the Council’s General Secretary on Nov. 16, 1964 (emphasis added).

[2]           Session Six, January 13, 1547, Decree On Justification, Proem., and Canon I.

 

Here is the longer declaration:

 

Whereas there is, at this time, not without the shipwreck of many souls, and grievous detriment to the unity of the Church, a certain erroneous doctrine disseminated touching Justification; the sacred and holy, oecumenical and general Synod of Trent, lawfully assembled in the Holy Ghost, — the most reverend lords, Giammaria del Monte, bishop of Palaestrina, and Marcellus of the title of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, priest, cardinals of the holy Roman Church, and legates apostolic a latere, presiding therein, in the name of our most holy father and lord in Christ, Paul III., by the providence of God, Pope, purposes, unto the praise and glory of Almighty God, the tranquillizing of the Church, and the salvation of souls, to expound to all the faithful of Christ the true and sound doctrine touching the said Justification; which (doctrine) the sun of justice, Christ Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, taught, which the apostles transmitted, and which the Catholic Church, the Holy Ghost reminding her thereof, has always retained; most strictly forbidding that any henceforth presume to believe, preach, or teach, otherwise than as by this present decree is defined and declared.

 

If anyone saith, that man may be justified before God by his own works, whether done through the teaching of human nature, or that of the law, without the grace of God through Jesus Christ; let him be anathema.

 

(Emphasis added).

[3]           First Vatican Council, Session Four Chapter Four (emphasis added). 

[4]           Pope John XXIII’s Opening Speech to the Council, October 11, 1962 (emphasis added).

[5]           Athanasius and the Church of Our Times, Rudolf Graber, Van Duren (publisher), London, 1974, p.66 (emphasis added).  Here is the longer quote:

 

Since the Council was aiming primarily at a pastoral orientation and hence refrained from making dogmatically binding statements or disassociating itself, as previous Church assemblies have done, from errors and false doctrines by means of clear anathemas, many questions took on an opalescent ambivalence which provided a certain amount of justification for those who speak of the spirit of the Council.

 

(Emphasis added.)

 

[6]           Lumen Gentium Annotated is available at: scribd.com/doc/158994906 (free) & at Amazon.com (sold at cost).

[7]           Marie-Dominique Chenu, Jacques Duchesne interroge le Pere Chenu, Paris: Centurion, 1975, p. 17.


[8]           L’Osservatore Romano, April 12, 2013 (emphasis added), also found here: http://www.christianorder.com/editorials/editorials_2015/editorials_augsep15.html


[9]           The Council of Trent Catechism teaches:

 

[The Catholic Church’s] doctrines are neither novel nor of recent origin, but were delivered, of old, by the Apostles, and disseminated throughout the world.  Hence, no one can, for a moment, doubt that the impious opinions which heresy invents, opposed, as they are, to the doctrines taught by the Church from the days of the Apostles to the present time, are very different from the faith of the true Church.  

 

Council of Trent Catechism, under Creed; Apostolicity (emphasis added).

 

For more declarations of the Catholic Church that Her teachings are not new, go to this link: https://catholiccandle.neocities.org/faith/new-doctrines-are-heresy.html

 

[10]         Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology, translator, Sr. Mary Frances McCarthy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press 1987), pp. 381-382; French edition: Les Principes de la Theologie Catholique – Esquisse et Materiaux, Paris: Tequi, 1982, pp. 426-427 (emphasis added; bracketed words added; parenthetical words are in the original).


[11]         August 24, 1969 Declaration of Pope Paul VI, L’Osservatore Romano; (emphasis added).

[13]         Congar, in the Bulletin Etudes et Documents of June 15, 1965, as quoted in I Accuse the Council, Archbishop Lefebvre, p. 27, Angelus Press, 2009 (emphasis added; bracketed words added).

 

[14]         Yves Congar, The Council Day by Day: Second Session p. 215, (1964).

[15]         Quoted in the Catechism of the Crisis in the Church, Pt., 5, by Fr. M. Gaudron, SSPX, posted here: www.angelusonline.org/index.php?section=articles&subsection=show_article&article_id=2640.

 

[16]         See, Lumen Gentium Annotated is available at: scribd.com/doc/158994906 (free) & at Amazon.com (sold at cost).

[17]         Pope Paul VI, “After the Council: New Tasks”, The Pope Speaks, vol. 11 (Winter, 1966), p.154.


[18]         Address during the last general meeting of the Second Vatican Council, December 7, 1965; Acts of the Apostolic See, #58; http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/speeches/1965/documents/hf_p-vi_spe_19651207_epilogo-concilio_en.html (emphasis added).

 

[19]         Pope Paul VI, General Audience, 12 January 1966,
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/audiences/1966/documents/hf_p-vi_aud_19660112_it.html (emphasis added).

 

[20]         Address to the Chilean Episcopal Conference, Santiago, Chile, July 13, 1988, http://sagradatradicion.blogspot.com/2009/03/alocucion-los-obispos-en-chile-1988.html (Spanish).

 

[21]         Pope John XXIII’s Opening Speech to the Council, The Documents of Vatican II, Abbott (general editor), p.715 (bracketed words in the original).


[22]         Council and Clergy, John Cardinal Heenan, London, 1966, p.7 (emphasis added; bracketed words added).

[23]         Giacomo Biffi, Memorie e digressioni di un Italiano Cardinale (Sienna, 2007).


[24]         An Open Letter to Confused Catholics, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Ch. 14, entitled “Vatican II is the French Revolution in the Church”, p. 107 (bracketed words in the original).

[25]         The Tablet, (England) Nov. 25, 1967, p.1220 (emphasis added).


[26]         The Tablet, March 2, 1968, p.199.

[27]         Athanasius and the Church of Our Times, Rudolf Graber, Van Duren (publisher), London, 1974, p.66 (emphasis added).


[28]         Catholic World News, as quoted in its January 22, 1997 edition online.

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Words to Live by – from Catholic Tradition

 

Whenever We Complain We Offend God, Harm Our Souls, and Scandalize Our Neighbor

 

St. John of the Cross, great Mystical Doctor, reminds us to never complain.  Here are his words:

 

Anyone who complains or grumbles is not perfect,
nor is he even a good Christian.


Words of St. John of the Cross, quoted from his work called Other Counsels, #4.

Reminder That the Climate Scare is Mere Fear-Mongering

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Catholic Candle note: The globalists are seeking to grab power by frightening gullible people that there is a climate emergency that requires the globalists to save us by wielding totalitarian power for our own good.  Read this article: The Baseless Climate-Change Scare aims to usher in the New World Order, found here:   https://catholiccandle.org/2019/12/22/the-baseless-climate-change/

These globalists falsify and deceptively use climate data as part of their scheme to alarm people with a supposed global-warming emergency.  In roughly the 1970s, the globalists tried (and largely succeeded) in alarming people by the scare of global cooling and the (supposed) coming of a “new ice age”.  https://catholiccandle.org/2022/10/25/recalling-a-1970s-climate-change-hoax/

The globalists use cyclical climate trends to alarm the people, as if the climate cycle was going to continue without end in the same direction.  In an earlier article, we examined the fact that the climate is naturally cyclical.  There are daily cycles, yearly cycles, decades-long cycles, and centuries-long cycles.  Read this article: Climate Alarmists Abuse Data from Natural Weather Cycles: https://catholiccandle.org/2023/02/24/climate-alarmists-abuse-data-from-natural-weather-cycles/

Here are further articles on the ongoing climate scare hoax:

➢  Glacier-Melting Alarmism: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/01/23/glacier-melting-alarmism/

 

➢  Climate Fearmongers Always Warn that Doom is Almost Here: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/01/10/greta-thunberg-and-the-doom-coming-soon-scam/

➢  The “Deadly Heat” Alarmism: https://catholiccandle.org/2023/08/24/the-deadly-heat-alarmism/

➢  False Claims that Global Warming Is Intensifying Hurricanes, Part 1: https://catholiccandle.org/2023/04/10/the-false-claim-that-global-warming-causes-hurricanes-to-be-more-severe/

➢  False Claims that Global Warming Is Intensifying Hurricanes, Part 2: https://catholiccandle.org/2023/07/15/the-false-claim-that-global-warming-causes-hurricanes-to-be-more-severe-part-2/

Reminder and A Little Further Evidence Showing That the Climate Scare is Mere Fear-Mongering

In some places in the Northern Hemisphere, we are now experiencing a comparatively warm summer (so far).  While experiencing this weather, it would be easy – because it would be in accord with fallen human nature – to suppose that our climate is heading toward frying us to a crisp.  But leaping to this conclusion fails to take into account three things:

1.    That the climate goes in cycles.  There are daily cycles, annual cycles, decades-long cycles, and centuries-long cycles.[1]  These cycles reverse themselves and every warming trend is followed by a cooling trend.

2.    Divine Providence takes such tender care of us.  We have nothing to fear because God is in control and the world which He created is the best possible universe.[2]  God reminds us of His loving, Providential care for us in these words:

Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the son of her womb? and if she should forget, yet will not I forget thee.  Behold, I have graven thee in My Hands.

Isaiah, 49:15-16.

3.    The climate scare is based on emotion, not reason.  Because of the wounds of Original Sin, fallen man is prone to overreact to pain and to fear.  Fallen man does not judge well because his mind is easily moved away from sound judgment and rational analysis by the impetus of sense and passion.  He is prone to suppose what he is sensing now is somehow “bigger” than past events because the current sensations are more immediate and “tangible”. 

We see this same conclusion – driven by pain and fear – in St. Augustine’s time.  Sixteen hundred years ago, St. Augustine, Doctor of the Church, described this same foolish tendency of (fallen) man to leap to assumptions about the weather with unreasonable foreboding.  Here is one way he describes it:

Not only did our elders complain about their days, their grandparents too complained about their [own] days.  People have never been pleased with the days they lived in.  But the days of the ancestors please their descendants, and they too were pleased with the days they hadn’t experienced – and that’s precisely why they thought them pleasant.  It’s what’s present that is sharply felt.  I don’t mean it comes nearer, but it touches the heart every day.  Practically every year when we feel the cold we say “It’s never been so cold.”  “It’s never been so hot.”  “It,” “it” – “it” is always in our minds.  But blessed is the man whom You instruct, O Lord, to claim him from baleful days, while a pit is being dug for the sinner.[3]

At its root, St. Augustine is describing fallen man’s tendency to suppose that things (such as the weather and climate) used to be very good and pleasant but now it has begun to become bad and painful.

Notice St. Augustine’s own serenity in his words.  That is how a reasonable man should be – and a man of Faith.  See how this great Doctor is not disturbed in the least by the childish outlook of the climate alarmists down through the centuries.

We greatly need “more St. Augustines” today!  We need strong, manly men!  We need men of the true Traditional Catholic Faith and of reason!

Instead, we have “scaredy-cats” who look with foreboding at the climate.  Truly, they fit the proverb that a coward dies a thousand deaths, a brave man just one.

Such wimpy men are stampeded into fear by absurd predictions made by foolish dupes (and leftist tools) like Greta Thunberg, who predicted that the extinction of humanity would occur before now.  Here is one way that she foolishly and  confidently predicted her doomsday scenario seven years ago, viz., that all mankind would dead two years ago:

Those climate cowards are all around us today.  But rash men such as these not only live now but also lived in St. Augustine’s time, and, in fact, throughout history.

Which brings us to an interesting map we wanted to share with you, which shows the record high temperature for each state.

NOAA

This map compiles U.S. government (NOAA) data taken from a NOAA chart found here: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/scec/records

Despite the rash alarmists’ claim that our climate is getting continually hotter, the data on this map shows that 36 of the 50 state record highs were set more than five decades ago. Twenty-three states’ record high temperatures occurred during the 1930s, when annual human CO2 emissions were less than one-eighth of today’s emissions.  Despite leftist/mainstream media continually claiming that climate disaster is coming soon, only 6 state high temperature records have occurred in the 25 years (since the year 2000).

This map and climate data remind us to ignore those “chicken littles” who are constantly insisting that climate disaster is only five or ten years away.


[1]           Read this article: Climate Alarmists Abuse Data from Natural Weather Cycles: https://catholiccandle.org/2023/02/24/climate-alarmists-abuse-data-from-natural-weather-cycles/


[2]           Here is St. Thomas’ fuller explanation of this truth:

 

It is the part of the best agent to produce an effect which is best in its entirety; but this does not mean that He makes every part of the whole the best absolutely, but in proportion to the whole; in the case of an animal, for instance, its goodness would be taken away if every part of it had the dignity of an eye. Thus, therefore, God also made the universe to be best as a whole, according to the mode of a creature; whereas He did not make each single creature best, but one better than another.  And therefore, we find it said of each creature, “God saw the light, that it was good” (Genesis 1:4); and in like manner of each one of the rest.  But of all together it is said, “God saw all the things that He had made, and they were very good” (Genesis 1:31).

 

Summa, Ia, Q.47, a.2, ad 1 (emphasis added).

The Blessing of a True, Catholic Liberal Education — Part II

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Catholic Candle note: Below is part 2 of the article concerning the best type of education, which is a Catholic Liberal Education.  Do not confuse this education with many university programs called “liberal arts” but which are full of fluff, falsehood, and aimless so-called “enrichment” courses and “humanities”. 

A liberal education also does not refer to liberalism, nor is a true liberal education an indoctrination into that error of liberalism or political correctness.  In fact, a true Catholic Liberal Education is the best antidote to the errors of liberalism.

Previously, in part 1 of this article, we examined the problems we see in modern education. 

➢  Modern colleges do not improve the quality of their students’ minds and their thinking ability much or at all. 

➢  Most “education” is merely job training, fluff courses, and/or leftist indoctrination. 

➢  The students are taught to sound like someone in their field but they do little thinking and more memorizing. 

➢  Grade “inflation” and degree “inflation” is rampant.  Grades and academic degrees do not mean much anymore.

Part 1 of this article can be found here: The Blessing of a True, Catholic Liberal Education – Part 1: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/06/28/the-blessings-of-a-true-catholic-liberal-education/

Below is part 2 of this article. 


The Blessing of a True, Catholic Liberal Education

Part 2

By contrast to modern education, a real education should focus on perfecting our intellects – as God created us to do.  We should learn how to think carefully and critically.  A genuine education should improve our minds through learning universal truth, especially the highest truths.  Let us look more deeply into why we should do this.

What is Education?  Let us Consider the Human Soul and Its Perfection

Man has two immaterial powers (faculties) in his soul – the intellect (reason) and the rational appetite (the will).  The will desires and moves the man but is blind except with regard to what reason shows to it.  Thus, the intellect is higher than the will.

These two powers that man has in his soul do not reside in a bodily organ.  For example, they are not in his brain in particular.  By contrast, all other faculties of the soul reside in particular bodily organs.  So, for example, man has the power of sight but that power is an ability of the soul which is located in the eyes (and related specific bodily organs).

But the intellect is not in a bodily organ.  It would be impossible for the intellect to be in a bodily organ because the intellect contains universal (non-individual), immaterial concepts which cannot reside in a bodily organ.  For example, the intellect can understand abstractly (i.e., generally and universally) what a “part” is, without “picturing” a particular image of a part such as half of a red apple.

By contrast, the sense of sight and the other bodily senses can grasp only particular, sensible objects.  So, the sense of sight can apprehend a particular image (such as half of a red apple).  But the sense of sight cannot apprehend universally, i.e., more generally what it means for something to be a “half” or a “part”.

Such universal conception cannot reside in a body.  To take another example: a lump of modeling clay (which is a material object) is capable of receiving an image of various individual shapes in a manner which is similar to how the sense of sight is capable of receiving an individual image like the shape of a particular triangle.  But neither the clay nor a person’s sense of sight can receive the concept of “shape” in general, separate from particular shapes.

The intellect is not like that.  It can comprehend immaterial and abstract concepts.  The intellect can understand the concept of shape without needing to form a specific shape, such as an equilateral triangle.  This high immaterial power places us above the rest of material creation and makes us like God and the angels.

The intellect (unlike the bodily senses) can comprehend not only universals (such as what a “part” is, as abstracted from particular parts), but the intellect can also grasp spiritual realities which are immaterial such as justice, virtue, and happiness.


Summary of What We Have Just Seen About the Soul

So, we see that the intellect is the highest faculty (power) of the human soul.  This highest faculty (which is the one most God-like) is that one according to which God made us to live.  In other words:

In every aspect of our lives, God made us to
live according to reason.

Although God wants us to perfect all of the faculties and talents that He gave to us, He most especially wants us to perfect what is highest in ourselves.

(As we shall see in a later part of this article, the human life which is spent living according to our highest power is the happy life for man, both naturally and supernaturally.)


Truth is the Perfection of this Highest Faculty of the Soul

As we saw above, the intellect is our highest faculty and God created us to especially perfect it.  We do this by acquiring universal, unchangeable truth.  For as St. Thomas teaches, quoting Aristotle:

“The true is the good of the intellect, and the false is its evil”, as stated in [Aristotle’s] Ethics, bk.6, ch.2.[1]

In other words, it is truth which makes our intellect good and which makes a man good to the extent that he has perfected his highest faculty.

There are innumerable such universal, eternal truths.  To take two simple examples:

➢  The whole is greater than its own part; and

 

➢  4 + 4 = 8.

Both of those statements are always true.

The truths of our Holy Catholic Faith are unchangeable truths which especially perfect our intellects because these truths concern the highest matters, viz., God and the things of God.  Two examples of this are:

➢  God is entirely immaterial and has no body; and

➢  God has only one simple unchanging Act and He Himself is this very Act. In other words, God is entirely immaterial (i.e., without a body) and His very Self is His one Act of Understanding and Love.

Both of those statements are always true.


Errors Concerning Universal Truths are the Evil of the Intellect.

But just as truth is the good of the intellect, likewise, (as St. Thomas and Aristotle  teach above), the false (i.e., error) is the evil of the intellect.  Thus, to hold an error about a particular, universal truth results in a great evil residing in our intellect, our highest faculty.  To take two examples of such error:

1.    A line is an infinite set of points (as many modern math books falsely assert); and

2.    There is a type of number called an “irrational number” (as falsely asserted and described in many modern math books).

Both of these statements are always false.

Just as the highest universal, eternal truths (about God and the things of God) perfect our intellects to the greatest extent, similarly the errors about such highest truths are the greatest evils for our intellect.  To take two examples:

1.    All “religions” lead to God (as Pope Leo XIV and other ecumenists claimed); and

2.    All truth changes and “evolves” (as the modernists claim).

Both of these statements are always false.


Summary Concerning Universal Truth and Error

So, the truth about God (and the things of God) are the most desirable perfections of our intellect and no effort is too great to obtain and to increase our knowledge of such truths.  The chief joy of the blessed in heaven is to know God (in their intellects).  Similarly, here on earth, it is a great joy to marvel at a particular great truth that we have just learned, recognizing that it is “worth more than kingdoms”.

Correspondingly, the errors about those things related to God are most greatly undesirable and no efforts are too great to avoid such errors.  We should understand that nothing can sufficiently compensate for the great evil of holding error on such issues.


Singular Contingent Facts Do Not Perfect Our Minds.

Further, whereas eternal, unchangeable truth perfects our intellect, by contrast singular, contingent facts do not perfect it.  For example, a universal truth is “Dogs are mammals.”  By contrast, an instance of a contingent singular truth is “This dog, Rex, barks very loudly at passing cars.”

Again, individual, changeable facts (truths) do not perfect our intellects.  Here is one way St. Thomas teaches this truth:

It does not pertain to the intellect’s perfection to know the truth of contingent, singular facts in themselves.[2]

 

There are countless examples of such singular facts.  Here are two examples:

1.    Knowing the names of every street in our city.  (We can see how the street names are singular facts but also that the city can change the names of streets); and

2.    Knowing which sports teams are in the championship game this year.

So, in summary:

❖  Universal truth matters greatly.  We must strive to live the life of truth and to perfect our intellect.  We must consider such truth to be of very great importance.

❖  We must understand the importance of avoiding errors concerning matters of universal truth and to strive greatly to avoid errors on these issues. 

❖  The knowledge of singular, changeable facts does not matter at all and we should not clutter our minds with them unless we have a practical need to take note of them, e.g., remembering the route we need to take in order to arrive at places that we should travel (such as the grocery store or the hardware store).

As we see (above) the importance of perfecting the intellect, we could naturally ask who should perfect his intellect?  In part 3 of this article, we will examine the answer to that question.


To be continued …


[1]           Summa, IIa IIae, Q.60, a.4, ad 2.


[2]           Summa, IIa IIae, Q.60, a.4, ad 1-2

Lesson #47: Temperaments – Choleric Temperament – a Choleric’s Spiritual Combat – Part XII

Posted on by Catholic Candle

Philosophy Notes

Catholic Candle note: The article immediately below is part twelve of the study of the Choleric temperament.  The first eleven parts can be found here:

1.    Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #36:  About the Temperaments – Beginning our Study of the Choleric Temperament – Part I: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/08/27/lesson-35-about-the-temperaments-the-choleric-temperament/

2.    Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #37: About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament– Part II: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/09/26/lesson-37-about-the-temperaments-continuation-of-the-choleric-temperament/

3.    Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #38 — About the Temperaments – Continuing our Study of the Choleric Temperament – Their Spiritual Combat – Part III:: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/10/24/lesson-38-temperaments-choleric-temperament-their-spiritual-combat/

4.    Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #39 About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – That Temperament’s Spiritual Combat – Part IV: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/11/26/lesson-39-temperaments-choleric-temperament-their-spiritual-combat-part-iv/

5.    Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #40: Temperaments – Choleric Temperament – Their Spiritual Combat – Part V: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/12/30/lesson-40-temperaments-choleric-temperament-their-spiritual-combat-part-v/

6.    Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #41 – About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament: a Choleric’s Spiritual Combat — Part VI: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/01/27/lesson-41-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-vi/

7.    Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #42: About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – a Choleric’s Spiritual Combat – Part VII: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/02/21/lesson-42-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-vii/

8.    Mary’s School of Sanctity — Lesson #43 About the Temperaments –Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament — Their Spiritual Combat Part VIII: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/03/27/lesson-42-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-viii/

9.    Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #44 About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – Their Spiritual Combat, Part IX: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/04/23/lesson-44-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-ix/

10. Mary’s School of Sanctity — Lesson #45 About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – The Choleric’s  Spiritual Combat Part X: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/05/20/lesson-45-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-x/

11. Mary’s School of Sanctity — Lesson #46 About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – The Cholerics’  Spiritual Combat – Part XI:  https://catholiccandle.org/2025/06/28/lesson-46-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-xi/

 

Mary’s School of Sanctity

Lesson #47 About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – The Choleric’s Spiritual Combat – Part XII

Note: When referring to a person with a choleric temperament in this article, we simply will label him as a choleric.

In our last lesson we examined in detail what is involved with one using his reason and saw that, when he does not listen to the voice of his reason, he sins.

Let us begin to probe into the possible reasons why the choleric has the tendency to not reason deeply or thoroughly.

In our last lesson, we saw some potential motives for why the choleric acts this way. 

Now we look further into the first of those motives, namely that the choleric simply does not want to take the time necessary to think things through.  This can be directly linked back to the problem of pride under several aspects.

First of all, let us recall the definition of pride which we saw in our last lesson.  When one has unreasonable pride[1], he views himself disproportionately, thinking that he is better in some respect than he really is.  For example, he may think he is very important.

Various Types of Unreasonable Pride Which Are Often Associated With the “Hurried” Choleric

We noted in an earlier lesson how the choleric tends to be over-confident and often acts as if he is a “know-it-all”.

This over-confidence naturally coincides with other aspects in the trap of pride.  Here the choleric wants to be seen as a “hero” who carries out the greatest achievements.  He sees himself as the one who “saves the day” especially when there is a crisis or a big problem to solve.

Along with this mentality (that he is a self-made hero) is the choleric’s drive to excel in what he is currently doing and in all his plans.  Because he wants to accomplish a great number of things, he believes that he does not have time to “slow-down” his “progress” and “waste” his time evaluating the details of his plans.  He certainly does not view the idea of analyzing his plan as anything that would be productive in assuring the success of his project.  Indeed, his over-confidence assures him that his plans are perfect so reflection about them is not needed.

This unreasonable pride[2] also prompts this choleric to want “instant fulfillment” of his plans.  We must remember that the choleric has a lot of energy and seems to always be on the move.  He wants to accomplish many things and acts as if he wished that his project could have been done already!  He wants his plans implemented “yesterday” or even “last year”!  He gets impatient if there are any delays in his plans.

Lacking a God-Centered View of Things

This choleric with unreasonable pride may very well think he is working with God’s Will in mind.  However, he more often has put his own will before God’s Will, and  his own glory before God’s glory.[3]

Unfortunately, he is easily ensnared in this kind of unreasonable pride and tends to think that his plan could not possibly have any flaws whatsoever.  If he knew the truth of the matter – viz., that to think thoroughly and deeply about his project would help him consider if his plan was good and/or perfecting to his soul – then he would actually want to take the necessary time to evaluate his plan.

How Should the Choleric Perceive Himself in Order to Prevent Unreasonable Pride and to Help Him Keep His Sights on God’s Will?

The choleric has to understand that God must be his first priority – in fact his only priority.  He must put God first in his heart, therefore, in his life.

In order to have this proper perspective he has to be, first of all, a man of prayer.  He must pray to know God’s will and to be humble.  If he understands how important it is to be humble and work for God – in the time-frame and under the circumstances that God sends – then he will have no problem being patient and waiting for God to enlighten his understanding.  He would seek advice and want to thoroughly examine his goals to be sure that he is not being fooled by a trick that the devil sends in order to entrap him in pride. 

The choleric should especially fear pride, for unreasonable pride is a sin.  Hence, he should fear his tendency to plow ahead heedlessly and impetuously.  He ought to pray to have a great appreciation for proper learning and for the use of reason, knowing that God expects him to use this highest faculty, his intellect.  Thus, he should understand the fact that it is sinful for him to not think deeply and carefully.  He should make it his goal to acquire a horror of displeasing God in any way.  He must see God as his beloved Friend and, thus, it must penetrate deep into his heart that he should avoid, at all costs, anything that would offend his Divine Friend.!  

By repeated efforts, the choleric can learn to want with all his heart to foster a deep love of God and thereby provide himself with the greatest protection against his type of unreasonable pride which leads him quickly to vainglory.

The Choleric Must Have High and Supernatural Goals.

The choleric must seek God’s Will in all things.  He must always ask himself what service/task/plan God wants from him.  The choleric must see his own nothingness first before he will be able to discover God’s Will and have the desire to work for God.  The choleric must be aware of his tendency to see himself as a special hero when, after all, he knows the truth that only God’s Will matters!   The choleric must overcome his temptation to vainglory.   If he fears vainglory, this will help him overcome the temptation to it.  He must see that the only true glory is to do God’s Will.  He must see his need to be united with God and that without God, he can do nothing.

A Preview…

In our next lesson we will address the second motive on the list (in lesson #46) of reasons why cholerics have a tendency to not think deeply and carefully, namely, because of a false belief that such reasoning is too difficult.


[1]           All sin is unreasonable and all unreasonable pride is a sin.  But there can be good pride, e.g., a parent’s proper pride in his children’s good conduct or a workman’s proper pride in his work, leading him to do good quality work and not “cut corners”.

[2]           All sin is unreasonable and all unreasonable pride is a sin.  But there can be good pride, e.g., a parent’s proper pride in his children’s good conduct or a workman’s proper pride in his work, leading him to do good quality work and not “cut corners”.

[3]           Here is one way that St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest Doctor of the Catholic Church, explains that this motive is vainglory:

 

Now the sin of vainglory, considered in itself, does not seem to be contrary to charity as regards the love of one’s neighbor; yet as regards the love of God it may be contrary to charity in two ways. 

 

In one way, by reason of the matter about which one glories; for instance, when one glories in something false that is opposed to the reverence we owe to God.  Or again, when a man prefers to God the temporal good in which he glories: for this is forbidden.  Or again, when a man prefers the testimony of man to God’s, thus, it is written in reproval of certain people [John 12:43], “For they loved the glory of men more than the glory of God.”

In another way vainglory may be contrary to charity, on the part of the one who glories, in that he refers his intention to glory as his last end; so that he directs even virtuous deeds thereto, and, in order to obtain it, forbears not from doing even that which is against God.   In this way it is a mortal sin.  Wherefore [St.] Augustine says (De Civ. Dei v. 14) that “this vice, namely the love of human praise, is so hostile to a godly faith, if the heart desires glory more that it fears or loves God, that Our Lord said (John 5:44): How can you believe, who receive glory one from another, and the glory which is from God alone, you do not seek?”

 

Summa, IIa IIae, Q.132, a.3, Respondeo (bracketed words added).

We Should Greatly Admire the Saintly Kings in the Church Triumphant!

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We should be especially impressed by the saintly kings in the Church Triumphant.  Although they became saints through fighting and conquering the temptations that we all must overcome, they did it under much more difficult circumstances. 

We ordinary “little guys” must, for example, fight gluttony.  But that vice is more difficult to fight when a man is king – having a king’s ability to obtain the most tempting delicacies.

Similarly, we ordinary “little guys” must fight impurity.  But that vice is more difficult to fight when a man is a king – having the ability to satisfy his unrestrained passions, even going to the extremes of King Henry the Eighth of England who founded the Anglican sect in his bedroom (one might say) because he was such a slave to lust.

We must fight pride, too.  As difficult as it is for us unimportant “nobodies” to fight pride, how much more difficult it is for a king to conquer pride when there are countless persons “lining up” to flatter him!

The children’s author, A.A. Milne, touches upon this flattery given to kings, in his poem, Teddy Bear, when he recounts how Winnie the Pooh came across the picture of a fat king who was flattered by his subjects.  Here is the excerpt from the poem:

One night it happened that [Pooh] took

A peep at an old picture-book,

Wherein he came across by chance

The picture of a King of France

 

(A stoutish man) and, down below,

These words: “King Louis So and So,

Nicknamed ‘The Handsome!’” There he sat,

And (think of it!) the man was fat!

 

Teddy Bear, by A.A. Milne

How difficult it must be for a king to learn the truth when his subjects are prone to conceal the truth from him and to flatter him!  Of course, the king’s own inclinations toward pride (and other vices) would be so quick to agree with that flattery.  Pride is so “intoxicating”, and what spiritual peril there is when a man is a king!

The above quote from Milne not only depicts a king who encounters “intoxicating” flattery which endangers the king’s soul by fostering pride, but this quote also shows the difficulty of acquiring the virtue of temperance under royal circumstances! 

On a more serious note (than Winnie the Pooh), Our Lord shows the same truth (quoted below), viz.,  that a king’s subjects flatter him and foster his pride.

The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and they that have power over them, are called beneficent.

St. Luke’s Gospel, 22:25.

Of course, not all kings are really beneficent (and probably few of them are).[1]  Nor does Our Lord say that they are beneficent.  What Our Lord is stating is that a person (such as a king) who has power over his people is flattered by them.  They give him compliments like “beneficent” to try to gain his favor or at least to avoid his disfavor.

It is already hard for us to objectively discern the truth about ourselves and about our own character.  How much more difficult is this same discernment for a man who is a king and is flattered by his subjects!

Further, being a king requires that he wield enormous power as part of his duty of state.  This might feel exhilarating to the king (or anyone) but it is spiritually hazardous.  For example, Queen Elizabeth I of England so craved royal power that she sold her soul in exchange for that power.  Here is what St. Alphonsus de Liguori said about her when he used her as a lesson:

A certain queen, blinded by the ambition of being a sovereign, said one day: “If the Lord gives me a reign of forty years, I shall renounce Paradise.” The unhappy queen reigned for forty years; but now that she is in another world, she cannot but be grieved at having made such a renunciation.  Oh! how great must be her anguish at the thought of having lost the kingdom of Paradise for the sake of a reign of forty years, full of troubles, of crosses, and of fears![2]

Just as it was shown above that a king has greater temptations to gluttony, lust, pride and ambition, so does he, likewise, to other sins.  A king’s circumstances place him in a much more difficult spiritual battle than ours.  We “little guys” find the allurements of all of those vices hard enough to fight, but how much harder do kings find the spiritual warfare in this life – with their greater temptations to sin! 

With all of this in mind, we see that we should greatly admire the kings who have fought the good fight and won!  Truly, they exemplify the man praised here:

Blessed is the rich man that is found without blemish: and that hath not gone after gold, nor put his trust in money nor in treasures.  Who is he, and we will praise him? for he hath done wonderful things in his life.  Who hath been tried thereby, and made perfect, he shall have glory everlasting.  He that could have transgressed, and hath not transgressed: and could do evil things, and hath not done them: therefore, are his goods established in the Lord, and all the church of the saints shall declare his alms.

Ecclesiasticus, 31:8-11.

With all of the moral dangers of being a king, truly a saintly king “hath done wonderful things in his life”!  He is worthy of our great admiration!

Let us have a greater appreciation for these saintly kings!  Let us also be more grateful that we are only insignificant “little guys” who are not assaulted by temptations as severe as those suffered by kings!

 


[1]           In fact, St. Thomas explains in his classic work On Kingship that the more a monarch works for his own personal benefit rather than the benefit of his subjects, the more he should be called a tyrant, not a king.  On Kingship, chapter 3. 

[2]           Quoted from sermon #8, §9, On the Remorse of the Damned, given on the third Sunday after Epiphany, by St .Alphonsus de Liguori.

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Words to Live by – from Catholic Tradition

 

Bad leaders in the Church and in Society are a Punishment for Sin

 

We are suffering from bad leaders in the Church and civil society as Divine retribution for the sins of people in the human element of the Church and in civil society. 

 

Here is one way that St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest Doctor of the Church, teaches this truth:

 

To deserve to secure from God the blessing of a good ruler, the people must desist from sin, for it is by Divine permission that wicked men receive power to rule as a punishment for sin, as the Lord says by the Prophet Osee [13:11]: “I will give you a king in my wrath” and it is said in Job [34:30] that he “makes a man that is a hypocrite to reign for the sins of the people.” Sin must therefore be done away with in order that the scourge of tyrants may cease.

 

St. Thomas, On Kingship, ch.7 (emphasis added).

 

Catholic Candle note: Of course, the fact that God punishes people for their sins by giving them bad rulers, does not exonerate those bad rulers from their own culpability for their sins.  God is merely using the sins of bad rulers as a tool to punish the sins of the people.

Lesson #46: Temperaments – Choleric Temperament – a Choleric’s Spiritual Combat – Part XI

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Philosophy Notes

Catholic Candle note: The article immediately below is part eleven of the study of the Choleric temperament.  The first ten parts can be found here:

1.    Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #36:  About the Temperaments – Beginning our Study of the Choleric Temperament – Part I: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/08/27/lesson-35-about-the-temperaments-the-choleric-temperament/

2.    Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #37: About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament– Part II: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/09/26/lesson-37-about-the-temperaments-continuation-of-the-choleric-temperament/

3.    Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #38 — About the Temperaments – Continuing our Study of the Choleric Temperament – Their Spiritual Combat – Part III:: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/10/24/lesson-38-temperaments-choleric-temperament-their-spiritual-combat/

4.    Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #39 About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – That Temperament’s Spiritual Combat – Part IV: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/11/26/lesson-39-temperaments-choleric-temperament-their-spiritual-combat-part-iv/

 

5.    Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #40: Temperaments – Choleric Temperament – Their Spiritual Combat – Part V: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/12/30/lesson-40-temperaments-choleric-temperament-their-spiritual-combat-part-v/

6.    Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #41 – About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament: a Choleric’s Spiritual Combat — Part VI: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/01/27/lesson-41-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-vi/

 

7.    Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #42: About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – a Choleric’s Spiritual Combat – Part VII: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/02/21/lesson-42-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-vii/

8.    Mary’s School of Sanctity — Lesson #43 About the Temperaments –Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament — Their Spiritual Combat Part VIII: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/03/27/lesson-42-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-viii/

9.    Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #44 About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – Their Spiritual Combat, Part IX: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/04/23/lesson-44-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-ix/

10. Mary’s School of Sanctity — Lesson #45 About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – The Choleric’s  Spiritual Combat Part X: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/05/20/lesson-45-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-x/

 

Mary’s School of Sanctity

Lesson #46 About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – The Cholerics’  Spiritual Combat – Part XI

Note: When referring to a person with a choleric temperament in this article we simply will call him a “choleric”.

In our last lesson we delved further into the typical form of pride a choleric has. Now we begin a more in depth look at the core of the choleric pride.  We mentioned that the source of the choleric pride is a lack of mental discipline, that is, an unwillingness to force himself to reason deeply and carefully.

In order to discuss this unfortunate failure to use his intellect – which leads to pride – we need to have a basic understanding of how God expects us to use our intellect.

In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius explains that man is created to praise, revere, and serve God.[1]  The Baltimore Catechism refers to these actions as knowing, loving, and serving God. 

The highest faculty a man possesses is his intellect and so it makes sense that the more a man knows, the better he will be able to praise, revere, and serve God.  This is true even if he knows about God merely through observing God’s creation.[2]  The more someone knows the truth, the more he is inspired to love God and consequently to serve God better.[3]

The Purpose of the Intellect

Man is intended to use his God-given reason to know his proper goal, namely, the happiness of enjoying God in heaven, and to take the proper means to accomplish this goal.  However, because of original sin, man’s mind has the wound of ignorance and his body has the wounds of the concupiscence of the eyes and the flesh.  In addition to this, man is prone to inordinate pride (i.e., the pride of life, as St. John the Evangelist calls it, 1 St. John, 2:16).

St. Thomas explains that the goodness of an action depends on the will of a man being directed to his proper end, that is, to God.  He explains how God intended man’s reason to direct and inform his will about the end (i.e., goal) of man and about the proper means he should take to obtain his end.  The whole of the moral life involves man listening to the voice of reason (also known as his conscience).

God has set down His laws plainly and His Catholic Church, in her Divine Element, has expounded upon the moral life in detail.  Nevertheless, the law of God, the Natural Law, is written in the heart of each man – as Genesis tells us that we are made in the image and likeness of God.[4]

So When Does the Failure to Use the Intellect Cause Sin to Occur?  Whenever a man does not listen to his reason.

Every conscious thought, word, or deed is either good or is a sin – there is no “in between”.[5]  Whenever a man is acting voluntarily,[6] it is a sin for him to not act according to his reason.  In other words, he sins whenever he voluntarily does something unreasonable.[7]  

 

Pride is a type of unreasonableness because it is an unreasonable exaltation of oneself.[8]  Thus, pride is inherently a sin because it is inherently unreasonable.[9]

The Importance of Good Will in Using Our Reason

One must be of good will.  That is, a man’s will must follow the good shown by the reason.  The will pursues the good or the apparent good.  Thus, man has the grave moral responsibility to find out if a particular object is really good or is only apparently good.  If something is only apparently good and not truly good, then we are obliged to avoid it.  Because use of reason is the center of the moral life, a man has a duty to properly inform his conscience/reason.

Further, St. Thomas tells us that even if the will listens to (i.e., follows) the reason in a situation where reason is erroneous, there is no sin provided that there is no bad motive on the part of the will and provided that the will (i.e., the man) is not blamable for his ignorance.

This explanation shows how crucial the use of reason is in the moral life of the soul.

A preview…

We have more work to do to examine the subject of the choleric temperament and reasoning.  What would motivate cholerics to not think deeply and carefully?  Here are some possible motives:

Ø  They do not want to take the time necessary to think things through because they want to accomplish things quickly or they want to race forward to act in a way that would cause them to be perceived as heroes (or heroines).

Ø  Or, they believe that it is too difficult to think carefully and deeply. (This fear of mental effort is what St. Thomas Aquinas calls stupor.)

Ø  Or, they believe that they do not have the ability to think deeply. 

Ø  Or, they falsely view thinking deeply and carefully as “proud”.

Using these or other rationalizations, cholerics are fooled by the father of lies.


[1]           Read these articles which examine this essential truth of our Faith and of human existence:

 

†      https://catholiccandle.org/2022/05/24/lesson-9-the-principle-and-foundation-part-i/

 

†      https://catholiccandle.org/2022/06/27/lesson-11-the-principle-and-foundation-part-ii/

 

[2]           St. Paul teaches how man knows of God’s existence and goodness through looking at the world around us:

 

For the invisible things of Him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; His eternal power also, and Divinity:  so that they [atheists] are inexcusable.

 

Romans, 1:20 (bracketed word added to show context).

[3]           Here is one way that St. Augustine, great Doctor of the Church, teaches this truth, addressing himself directly to God:

 

Heaven and earth and all that is in them tell me, wherever I look, that I should love You [i.e.¸God], and they cease not to tell it to all men, so that there is no excuse for them.

St. Augustine, The Confessions, Bk 10, Ch.6 (bracketed words added to show context).

[4]           Genesis, 1:26-27.


[5]           Here is one way this truth is explained by St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest Doctor of the Catholic Church:

 

It belongs to the reason to direct; if an action that proceeds from deliberate reason be not directed to the due end, it is, by that fact alone, repugnant to reason, and has the character of evil. But if it be directed to a due end, it is in accord with reason; wherefore it has the character of good. Now it must needs be either directed or not directed to a due end. Consequently, every human action that proceeds from deliberate reason, if it be considered in the individual, must be good or bad.

 

Summa, Ia IIae, Q.18, a.9, Respondeo, Whether an individual action can be indifferent? (emphasis added).

[6]           St. Thomas contrasts voluntary (human) action with involuntary action proper to brute beasts:

 

If, however, [an action] does not proceed from deliberate reason, but from some act of the imagination, as when a man strokes his beard, or moves his hand or foot [e.g., in his sleep]; such an action, properly speaking, is not moral or human [but is the type of action a brute beast could perform], since this [moral and human action] depends on reason.  Hence [an act proceeding only from imagination] will be indifferent, as standing apart from the genus [i.e., category] of moral actions.

Summa, Ia IIae, Q.18, a.9, Respondeo, Whether an individual action can be indifferent? (emphasis added; bracketed words added to show the context).

[7]           St. Thomas explains this truth by quoting and following Pope St. Gregory the Great, Doctor of the Church:

 

Gregory says in a homily (vi in Evang.): “An idle word is one that lacks either the usefulness of rectitude or the motive of just necessity or pious utility.” But an idle word is an evil, because “men . . . shall render an account of it in the day of judgment” (Matthew 12:36): while if it does not lack the motive of just necessity or pious utility, it is good. Therefore, every [voluntary] word is either good or bad. For the same reason every other action is either good or bad. Therefore, no [voluntary] individual action is indifferent.

Summa, Ia IIae, Q.18, a.9, Sed Contra, Whether an individual action can be indifferent? (emphasis added; bracketed words added to show the context).

[8]           This article pertains to the unreasonable pride which is a sin.  We are not treating the proper and reasonable pride that a parent might have for his child or a citizen might have for his country.

[9]           St. Thomas explains the unreasonableness of pride in this way:

 

Right reason requires that every man’s will should tend to that which is proportionate to him [i.e., he recognizes the truth about himself].  Therefore, it is evident that pride denotes something opposed to right reason, and this shows it [pride] to have the character of sin, according to Dionysius (Div. Nom. iv. 4), “the soul’s evil is to be opposed to reason.”  Therefore, it is evident that pride is a sin.

 

Summa, IIa-IIae Q.162, a. 1, Respondeo (bracketed words added to show the context).

 

The Blessings of a True, Catholic Liberal Education

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Catholic Candle note: The article below concerns the best education, a Catholic Liberal Education.  Do not confuse it with many university programs called “liberal arts” but which are full of fluff, falsehood, and aimless so-called “enrichment” courses and “humanities”. 

A liberal education also does not refer to liberalism nor is a true liberal education an indoctrination into that error of liberalism or political correctness.  In fact, a true Catholic Liberal Education is the best antidote to the errors of liberalism.

Part 1

The Heart of a True Education is Thinking, Not Merely Memorizing

Let us start by reflecting on a problem that has existed for many decades but which is now worse than ever before and continues to get even worse.  This problem to which we refer is how common it is for people to graduate with a university degree without much (or any) real discernable improvement in their minds and thinking ability.  This is true whether the degree is a bachelor’s degree or a doctorate.

In their course work, students primarily learn how to “talk-the-talk” of their field.  An engineer learns engineering jargon.  Accountants learn accounting jargon.  Lawyers learn legal jargon.  Financial analysts learn their field’s jargon.  And so on.   And, usually, they also learn the jargon of political correctness, such as “social justice”, “diversity, equity, and inclusion”, etc.

Their diplomas, and being fluent in their field’s jargon, are the two ways these graduates show themselves to be members of their profession or field.  Even if those people are rather marginal or inadequate for engaging in the work of their field, they are trained to speak the jargon.

So, being a professional in his field often means being someone with a credential in that field and who is skilled at sounding like someone in that field.  Such jargon often might make a member of his field look and sound clever or learned, even when he is neither.  It makes him look like he is a man of understanding when he has merely been taught to parrot the experts’ statements – which have been “drilled into his head” through repetition and memorization.

To take one example: we saw how a great many physicians showed themselves to be unfit to practice medicine during the Covid scare.  They took the comfortable, lazy, conformist path of saying and doing whatever they were told by the medical establishment, even though it was contrary to what the eyes and experience of a thinking physician would show.[1]  These conformist physicians followed evil protocols which harmed their patients.

One reason for the way they acted was because (for many of them) they were too cowardly to exercise their independent judgment for the health of their patients.  That is a sufficient reason why these physicians are unfit for the practice of their profession – they don’t value the truth. 

In addition to physicians like these who are simply cowards, other physicians were ignorant of the harm they did to their patients because they were not accustomed to engaging in the true practice of medicine.  Instead, they slavishly followed the directives of the medical/political establishment, regardless of what those directives required.  These physicians followed the rash and lethal covid protocols and rejected the common, safe, inexpensive, and effective mitigation treatments of prudent doctors.

Based on their medical training, these physicians were conditioned to merely follow the medical establishment’s flow charts, checklists, and handbooks.  They did not use their independent judgment to treat the health of their patients.

They were accustomed to following the standard patterns such as ordering a medical test and then prescribing whatever pill was indicated by the flowcharts/protocols, depending on the test results. 

Although it is true that the treatment for the same health problem tends to take a similar path in many persons, the problem is that those physicians did not use their own professional judgment but merely deferred to whatever the medical/political establishment told them to do, no matter how unreasonable.[2]

It does not take a real physician to simply unthinkingly, uncritically follow the medical establishment’s treatment flowcharts/protocols.[3]  A professional (or someone who is proficient in whatever field) should be someone who uses his own good judgment and knows how to act independently and to practice in his field without anyone needing to tell him what to do.  He should not merely be someone who is trained to follow the rules and flow charts, as the modern “professional” is so often trained to do nowadays by the professional establishment in whichever field he is in.

Learning how to follow the flowcharts does not “make” a physician (or any professional).  Such medical treatment could be as adequately done (if it were legal) by a nurse, by a lab tech, or even, perhaps, by an eighth-grader who had been taught the medical jargon and how to follow the treatment flowcharts.

In this way, many physicians abdicate their responsibility to exercise their independent judgment, to reason carefully about a matter, and take full responsibility for their actions and the results.  So many physicians were (and are) unable to think critically since they never learned how to do so, because critical thinking is no longer taught in most schools.[4]  Instead of teaching students how to think, schools nowadays only teach students what to think – that is, the schools fill the students’ heads with the conclusions presented to those students to memorize.

The example above is about physicians, especially during the covid alarmism.  But a similar situation exists in other fields and disciplines.


An Example in Another Field, of Professional Conformity which Masquerades as Education

Above, we reviewed the incompetence demonstrated by physicians who blindly followed the deadly Covid flow charts and protocols issued by the political and medical establishment.

This conformity, and a lack of careful thinking and of exercising responsible professional judgment, is a much broader problem than merely among medical doctors.

Let us take another of countless examples of credentialed “professionals” who cannot (or do not) think on their own and merely speak the jargon of their field and mimic what the establishment tells them to say and do.

During the housing bubble of the early 2000s, risky, “subprime” mortgages of borrowers with bad credit histories, were packaged into bundles and were sold in the financial markets as AAA-rated securities.  (The “AAA” rating is the highest rating, reflecting the best and safest of all investments.)

Let us look at how this practice resulted in a major financial crisis.

In the search for greater profits, banks made huge numbers of mortgage loans, at higher interest rates, to borrowers with poor credit histories.[5]  The banks lowered their loan underwriting standards in order to originate more mortgage loans and the banks sold these mortgage contracts to investors (so those banks would not have to suffer the consequences of their lax standards).

Because there was a housing “bubble” at the time, housing prices were increasing at an unsustainable rate.  So, at the beginning of this “bubble”, when the subprime borrowers failed to pay their mortgages, the houses were (in the short run) increasing in value fast enough so the lender could sell the loan’s collateral (viz., the house) without suffering a loss after the borrower defaulted.

But this housing bubble (like all such “bubbles”) popped.  When the housing prices did not continue their unsustainable rise and when the economy took a downturn, then these subprime mortgages went into default in large numbers, causing massive losses as the prices of houses went down.

These subprime loans had been bundled into large groups and the three big credit rating agencies (Fitch, Standard & Poor’s, and Moody’s Investors Services) had rated these investments as AAA (the highest investment quality). 

Investors had been told that, although those subprime mortgages were risky investments individually, nonetheless, because they were bundled together, collectively those same mortgages became of the highest investment quality.[6]  The fallacy was that, if you add enough bad investments together, it becomes the best quality investment.

The certified financial analysts and the “whole financial world” parroted this nonsense.  The idea being (as it were) that if you pile enough manure in one heap, it becomes gourmet food.

Writing in hindsight, Investopedia.com stated:

The packaging of mortgage debt into bond-like financial instruments, was a key driver of the 2007-08 global financial crisis … that brought many major financial institutions on Wall Street and around the world to their knees when the U.S. real estate bubble burst.  …

The banks that held these … investments lost tens of billions of dollars which almost caused the US banking system to collapse.[7]

Here is one report from the period shortly before the risky mortgage bundles started to suffer huge losses:

Subprime mortgage bonds carrying the highest, “AAA,” rating have not eroded in quality despite price declines in the securities in recent days, Fitch Ratings said on Wednesday [August 8, 2007].

"We continue to be confident that “AAA” ratings reflect the high credit quality of those bonds ….”[8]

In this foolishness, “everyone” went along with the herd.  “No one” thought for himself, and “everyone” accepted the AAA credit rating for these bundles of junk mortgages because the “experts” told them they were ultra-safe.

While this foolishness was going on (and before the crash which later came), only a very few thinking people remarked that “this is nuts”!


Where did the Financial Analysts Go Wrong?

The financial analysts and other “professionals” who followed the herd on these mortgage investments had the academic degrees, spoke the industry jargon and could read spread sheets and charts.  But they did not use their own independent judgment and think clearly about the assertions being made that risky junk mortgages became ultra safe (we would say “magically”) if there were enough of them bundled together.

This results from the “institutions of higher learning” lowering academic standards and not teaching students how to think.  Instead, these students and graduates merely do what everyone else does in that field without exercising independent judgment in their work.

Such bachelor and doctoral degrees have much less value than they appear.  These considerations remind us that we cannot be sure of the competence of a person by merely confirming that he has the “correct” credential and sounds like he knows his field.

As we will see below, academic institutions have degraded their standards to lure more students (to gain students’ tuition dollars which are subsidized by federal government handouts – given either as grants or as subsidized loans).

When the overall number of students greatly increases (as it has in the last seventy years), this necessarily includes those students who are less qualified/unqualified because the more qualified students would generally already be college-bound (or entering graduate school).   Those underqualified students would not enroll at the particular school (or would not stay), if the universities did not greatly water-down their academic standards.

So, with diluted standards, academia pushes those students through the courses by teaching the students the jargon of their field and teaching them how to follow the flow charts and protocols of what they should do in their future work in their field, without really teaching the students how to think and without equipping them to act proficiently as independent professionals who practice in their field by exercising their own good judgment and acting on this judgment.


The Problem of Degree Inflation in Modern Academia

Not only do universities admit many, many, unqualified people in order to expand the class sizes and increase their tuition inflow, but this watering down also fits in other ways with the universities’ goals, since those institutions are captured by the leftists and promote leftist goals.

The leftists seek to eliminate meritocracy, which is the recognition and rewarding of superior objective performance.  Meritocracy is the opposite of the modern leftist idea that “everyone wins” and “everyone gets a prize”.  Obviously, this unrealistic mentality (viz., that “everyone wins”) deceives the students about the real world, which has real winners and real losers.  Thus, students are deprived of life-lessons which would foster in them resiliency of character and help them learn how to handle disappointments in life.

Further, the “everyone wins” mentality results in students not trying as hard as they should have – or would have – if they had not received good grades with little effort.  This discourages superior accomplishment and striving for excellence.

One of the reasons there is so much protesting (on college campuses) about political causes (such as related to the Gaza war in 2024) is because colleges are full of persons who are unfit for learning deeply and reflecting carefully – which are the activities of a true education.  Thus, many of these students are instead looking to live the life of action (not reflection).  They are not looking to improve their minds but to “make a difference” in society, as that phrase would be defined by “political correctness”.  Such students and faculty often demand that their college commits itself to social and political action in lieu of the life of education and knowledge.

There are many organizations in society (some good, some bad) which are dedicated to organizing and engaging in political action, promoting social causes, and focusing on practical pursuits.  Such “students” really belong (temperamentally) in those organizations.  If they are unwilling to postpone their life of action, then they do not belong at an institution of reflection and deep study (as a college should be).

Faculties should be largely communities of scholars, and the students should be apprentice-scholars.  But modern students are so often not docile disciples of wise teachers but instead are “change agents”[9] for social and political causes, often egged on by their leftist professors who do not belong at a real institution of learning any more than these students do.

The universities are inundated with frivolous sham “degrees” awarded for successfully memorizing sufficient leftist indoctrination – fields such as “black studies”, “women’s studies”, “ecological studies”, “sociology”, “psychology”[10], etc. 

The universities compete against each other for the same tuition dollars and so they offer students a curriculum which is attractive, easy, and “relevant” to them instead of offering a true scholarly education perfecting their minds through the pursuit of the highest universal truth.  Instead of a real education, students can elect to study  “theater arts”, “casino management”, “jazz performance”, “film production”, etc.  Through these activities and “relevant” courses, students and faculties can flatter their self-image and “check the boxes” which result in a four-year degree.

Instead of a college producing careful, reflective, wise, and analytical thinkers whose minds are perfected by the highest truths, colleges produce graduates who can superficially talk the jargon of the field and function by following the protocols of the particular industry.

What should happen is that colleges would enroll only those who can learn (and who are committed to learning) what colleges must teach – viz., the higher truths and wisdom.  THIS would make colleges truly institutions of higher learning and would make their students truly educated.  This curriculum would be a true Catholic Liberal Education (the elements of which we will examine in a later part of this article). 

But instead, colleges enroll those who are neither prepared for a true education nor are interested in true knowledge and wisdom.  So, the colleges give students what they want: functional, practical, “relevant” and (largely) shallow courses which are job training and social activism.


The Problem of Grade Inflation in Modern Academia

Grade inflation increasingly is widespread and a grade of “A” often really should mean “average”.  For example, roughly 79 percent of the grades awarded at the prestigious Yale University in the 2022–23 academic year were A’s or A-minuses.[11]  Likewise, almost 80% of Harvard students get an A, A-, or A+.[12] 

With such grade inflation one could say that everyone (more or less) is at the top of his class.  This means that the cum laude designation often deserves little praise and those who graduate with distinction are often distinctly average.

The watering down of academic standards is shown to be even worse when we consider that the average student coming into college can read at only the 7th grade level.[13]  Thus, if we were to assume that the student will make four years of reading improvement in the four years of college, then he would read at approximately an 11th grade level (junior in high school) when he graduates from college.  This means that this average student would graduate from college still unable to read at the grade level of a high school senior.

Misunderstanding What True Education Is

We should perfect our intellects (as God created us to do).  This is done through genuine education in universal truth, especially the highest truths.  (We will see more about this in a later part of this series.)  But in our perverse and carnal times, few people do that, or want to do that, or even know that this should be their goal.

Most people go to college to get job training and to memorize what they are told to memorize, not to genuinely perfect their minds.  Because the college life is no longer about the truth and no longer about developing the mind, it has become political and involves the concealing of racial and other types of performance disparities.  The focus is on money, power, prestige, and self-interest. 

Instead, without ever learning how to think carefully and critically, the students imbibe the politically correct conclusions and learn to become “social justice warriors” without ever learning how to evaluate the leftist garbage that is crammed into their minds.  Such students neither are capable of, nor interested in, leading the life of a scholar, pursuing the truth, and perfecting their minds.

Whereas universities should be offering a student precious years in which to gain wisdom and learn deep truths, instead those institutions compete for students by offering the cheapest and quickest road to an “academic” degree to be used as a tool with which to get a “good job”.  Thus, degrees nowadays are largely mere job training – which is not real education.  The idea is that with a degree, they can command a higher income in the job market.

A big part of the problem is that the government subsidizes education (including taxpayer subsidized state schools).  When something is subsidized, more people “buy” it – including many people who would not value it enough to “buy” the item if it were not subsidized.  So often students go to universities (at least in part) in order to grab government tuition freebees/handouts, have “fun”, and delay the time at which they must support themselves. 

Thus, it would help reduce degree “inflation” if the government stopped pumping money (subsidies and freebees) into the universities.  If that happened, there would be fewer students and more real education.  (There would also be other benefits such as a reduction of the injustices that society suffers, through the elimination of this socialist wealth-redistribution which occurs by such government subsidies).

Whereas, for hundreds of years, until recent decades, an academic degree indicated that a person had a somewhat exclusive intellectual formation, now those credentials have been so debased by a proliferation of low-standard college credentials that they often mean little else besides marking a period of four years of leftist indoctrination.  Moreover, during those four years, the focus is increasingly on “student experience” rather than on student learning.  In other words, the focus is on the “student as customer and consumer” rather than as a seeker of the highest knowledge and wisdom.

As we will see in a later part of this article, this highest knowledge and wisdom is truly beyond all price and should be valued “more than kingdoms”!


To be continued

 


[1]           For analysis of the Covid nonsense, read these articles:

v  The Overblown Corona Scare: https://catholiccandle.org/2020/10/01/the-overblown-corona-scare/

v  Problems with Face Masks: https://catholiccandle.org/2020/12/01/856/

v  Reject the COVID Vaccines!  https://catholiccandle.org/2021/01/01/reject-the-covid-vaccines/

v  Lockdowns are for Controlling People, Not a Virus: https://catholiccandle.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/lockdowns-are-to-control-people-not-a-virus-2.pdf

[3]           Read this article about the oppressive forces imposing medical conformity: How Your Family Doc Became a Drug Enforcement Agent, https://brownstone.org/articles/how-your-family-doc-became-a-drug-enforcement-agent/

[4]           Read this article: The Evils of Social-Emotional Learning: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/07/12/the-evils-of-social-emotional-learning/

 


[6]           Read, e.g., this article: https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-subprime-fitch-idUSN1831999120070718/

[9]           This is a phrase (usually used favorably by leftists) referring to persons changing society through protesting and other social activism.

[10]         Concerning “psychological” counseling: there is certainly a science of the study of the soul.  But in his Commentary on Aristotle’s Treatise on the Soul (“De Anima”), St. Thomas Aquinas shows the truth that, aside from medical problems in the brain as a bodily organ, which are caused by disease or physical trauma, what people need, who have “psychological” problems, is wise moral advice, sometimes over a prolonged period, concerning how to change their thinking about life and what moral choices they should make.

Thus, what is needed by people who have “psychological” problems is not someone with a particular academic degree or license but rather an advisor who has the virtue of Prudence, the Gift of the Holy Ghost which is called “Counsel”, and the other virtues and Gifts of the Holy Ghost.

Posted on by Catholic Candle

Words to Live by – from Catholic Tradition

We Must Live According to Reason – Not According to Inclination

Here is the teaching of St. John of the Cross, the Mystical Doctor of the Church:

Blessed is he who, setting aside his own liking and inclination, considers things according to reason and justice before doing them.


Quoted from his work, Prayer Of A Soul Taken With Love, #42.


Lesson #45: Temperaments – Choleric Temperament – a Choleric’s Spiritual Combat – Part X

Posted on by Catholic Candle

Philosophy Notes

Catholic Candle note: The article immediately below is part ten of the study of the Choleric temperament. The first nine parts can be found here:

  1. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #36: About the Temperaments – Beginning our Study of the Choleric Temperament – Part I: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/08/27/lesson-35-about-the-temperaments-the-choleric-temperament/

  2. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #37: About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament– Part II: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/09/26/lesson-37-about-the-temperaments-continuation-of-the-choleric-temperament/

  3. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #38 — About the Temperaments – Continuing our Study of the Choleric Temperament – Their Spiritual Combat – Part III:: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/10/24/lesson-38-temperaments-choleric-temperament-their-spiritual-combat/

  4. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #39 About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – That Temperament’s Spiritual Combat – Part IV: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/11/26/lesson-39-temperaments-choleric-temperament-their-spiritual-combat-part-iv/

  1. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #40: Temperaments – Choleric Temperament – Their Spiritual Combat – Part V: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/12/30/lesson-40-temperaments-choleric-temperament-their-spiritual-combat-part-v/

  2. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #41 – About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament: a Choleric’s Spiritual Combat — Part VI: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/01/27/lesson-41-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-vi/

  1. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #42: About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – a Choleric’s Spiritual Combat – Part VII: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/02/21/lesson-42-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-vii/


  2. Mary’s School of Sanctity — Lesson #43 About the Temperaments –Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament — Their Spiritual Combat Part VIII: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/03/27/lesson-42-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-viii/

  3. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #44 About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – Their Spiritual Combat, Part IX: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/04/23/lesson-44-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-ix/


Mary’s School of Sanctity

Lesson #45 About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament –
The Choleric’s Spiritual Combat Part X

Note: When referring to a person with a choleric temperament in this article, we simply will label him as a choleric.

Previously, we have discussed anger and its link to pride in the choleric. Likewise, we have discussed at length how a choleric must acquire self-knowledge so he can master himself. He must beware of nurturing hatred, which fosters holding grudges.

In addition to all of this is another character trait which is directly linked to pride, namely, the choleric’s tendency to criticize and misjudge others.

When one thinks about the fact that with fallen human nature we are all infected with pride, one can see many results of this infection. One result is that we do not like others to see our weaknesses and failings. In fact, we tend to try to hide our faults rather than admit that we have them.

The bad-willed choleric is especially prone to this tendency to never admit that he is wrong. He does not want to see himself the way he really is. He avoids looking deeply into himself because he dreads discovering anything that he needs to improve in himself. This is a form of pride which in turn leads to blinding himself further regarding his own defects. He tries to convince himself that does not have his various defects. Likewise, he does not want others to see that he has any flaws.

One common way that this choleric attempts to deflect attention from his defects is to accuse others of flaws or supposed flaws. Thus, this choleric has a very strong tendency to criticize others as a means of keeping others from seeing him as he really is. Of course, this is directly linked to his denial of some (or all) of his defects. (A bad-willed choleric might be aware of his defects but does not want to correct them.) This form of pride is extremely strong in him.

An interesting point is that it seems that the more pride the bad-willed choleric has, the more critical he is and, therefore, the more he is unbearable he is to others. He seems to find constant fault with everyone around him. Thus, it can be that with some cholerics, nothing seems to please them.

Another important point to consider is that the proud choleric is instinctively intimidated by virtuous people around him, as if he can sense his defects more intensely in comparison to them. The intimidation he feels is so great within him that he vents his vexation by especially attacking any virtuous person associated with him.

If anyone points out to him any defect, this proud choleric can’t handle it and he lashes out at the “accuser”. He hurls insults at him and insists that the virtuous one, who was giving fraternal correction with love, is full of vice. It is ironic that oftentimes the so-called vice the choleric accuses his corrector of having, is the very vice he himself is full of. Instead of the choleric showing gratitude to the one giving charitable fraternal correction, the proud choleric displays his defects even more prominently by his haughty reaction to the correction.

Unfortunately, this pattern of behavior in a proud choleric is usually a vicious circle. His relatives and acquaintances become overwhelmed with the situation and do not know how to try to help him. However, since pride is blind, the choleric tends not to see any problem, so the problem becomes worse.

What can a choleric do to avoid turning into an unjust criticizer? (Below is a short list of suggestions. Of course, more can be found.)

1) Be aware of the tendency of cholerics to be proud.

2) Work very hard at acquiring the virtue of humility.

3) Saying ejaculations such as, “Jesus Meek and Humble of Heart make my heart like unto Thine,” is extremely helpful. Likewise, saying the Litany of Humility1 often, even twice a day, is a powerful means to fight pride.

4) When a critical comment/thought about another person comes into his mind, he could tell himself that he himself possesses that problem and he should not say or think of criticizing others, because doing so would be like the “pot calling the kettle black.”

5) He should pray to Our Lord and Our Lady to help him acquire more and more self-knowledge so he can see himself more in the Divine Light and work on improving his character.

6) He must tell himself to not be afraid of seeing his flaws because God intends him to continually convert and become more Christ-like— for our life on earth is to be an imitation of Christ and so we Catholics should want with all our hearts to go to heaven and to be divine friends with Our Lord.

7) He should remind himself that everyone has a form of pride and other defects to work on, and being aware of his is a great blessing. Knowing oneself is half the battle, so to speak; then all he needs to do is to get to work and improvements and peace of soul will come.

8) He should also remind himself that others will find him easier to bear if he has begun in earnest to change his attitude to a humble one.

A Preview…

In our next lesson we will examine the very core of the choleric pride – a lack of mental discipline, i.e., an unwillingness to force himself to reason deeply.

This lack of mental discipline has the following consequences (which we will examine):

  • Not making good choices/decisions;

  • Plans are poorly formulated and poorly implemented;

  • Failures leading to blaming others;

  • Failures leading to making excuses and covering up problems;

  • Trying to compensate for poor thinking by acting overconfident and/or bragging; and

  • Trying to manipulate others and control them to avoid the problems caused by bad planning.

1 Litany of Humility
O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me.

From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being loved… Deliver etc.

From the desire of being extolled …

From the desire of being honored …

From the desire of being praised …

From the desire of being preferred to others…

From the desire of being consulted …

From the desire of being approved …

From the fear of being humiliated …

From the fear of being despised…

From the fear of suffering rebukes …

From the fear of being calumniated …

From the fear of being forgotten …

From the fear of being ridiculed …

From the fear of being wronged …

From the fear of being suspected …

That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be esteemed more than I … Jesus, grant etc.

That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease …
That others may be chosen and I set aside …
That others may be praised and I unnoticed …
That others may be preferred to me in everything…
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should…



CC in Brief – Should we EVER go into St. Peter’s Basilica?

Posted on by Catholic Candle

Catholic Candle note: Catholic Candle normally examines particular issues thoroughly, at length, using the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas and the other Doctors of the Church. By contrast, our feature CC in Brief, usually gives an extremely short answer to a reader’s question. We invite every reader to submit his own questions.

CC in Brief

Should we EVER go into St. Peter’s Basilica?

Below is a reader’s question in light of an article in the April 2025 Catholic Candle concerning conciliar (and other compromise) churches being unfitting places to pray1:

Q. Are you saying that a Catholic should not go into St. Peter’s Basilica?  Did not the Lord go into the Temple, that den of thieves where blasphemies were regularly committed?

A. You are correct to follow Our Lord’s example in all things. But we must be careful to make sure that we are in the same situation before doing the same physical act that Our Lord did. So, e.g., we should not attempt to walk on water, as He did.

The Temple was Our Lord’s own house. Consider the possible difference between a well-armed man who walked into his own house which has been taken over by a drug gang, when he seeks to clean out the riffraff (like Our Lord going into the Temple to clean it out). Compare this to someone else deciding to walk into the same drug house with lesser good reasons, or even just for gawking and photo opportunities, etc.

Further, there seems to be a difference between Catholic practice near the time of Our Lord and after that. There was a certain transition period during which Catholics like Saints Peter and John went into the Temple [Acts of the Apostles, 3:1-6], but after this transition period, Catholics did not enter. In fact, the three reasons given in the Catholic Candle article2 are an ample basis for explaining why faithful and informed Catholics ceased entering synagogues, just as they should not enter conciliar or compromise churches as explained in the Catholic Candle article. So, for the reasons set forth in the Catholic Candle article, we think people should not go into conciliar or other compromise churches to pray.

But what about entering a conciliar building for tourism purposes? Is there scandal3 then?

Yes, there is still scandal, but for different reasons. There would not be the same type of scandal when one enters a church building – like St. Peter’s in Rome – if it is a daily tourist trap full of large crowds who are obviously not there to pray. In such a case, if a man were to walk into the building snapping pictures, dressed like a tourist, and not praying or genuflecting, it reduces or eliminates the scandal of being seen entering there as a place of prayer.

But there would still be a different problem than the scandal of a man going into that church to pray. This is because it seems unfitting to simply treat St. Peter’s as a secular tourist site because this ignores the fact that the basilica was formerly a place of holiness, although it is now desecrated. Profane treatment of a once-holy building would seem to be wrong, like treating a previously-consecrated chalice like a secular drinking vessel because it has already been desecrated. So, we should not go into conciliar or compromise churches either to pray or to simply gawk around and look at the beauty of the art.4

Besides the scandal of praying in conciliar churches, there are other concerns and occasions for compromise when entering these places. One temptation would be to genuflect (out of a misguided reverence) in front of the “tabernacles.” (There is a serious doubt that Our Lord is really present in the novus ordo and various “Latin Mass” venues, based not only regarding the problems with the novus ordo “mass” itself, but also doubtful ordinations/consecrations, and invalid form, matter, or intention.)

One might see some otherwise well-meaning “Traditionalists” dipping their fingers into the “holy” water fonts, or even showing respect for the masonic “altar” tables. All of this constitutes compromising / mixing with the Revolution. We must never do this.

In contrast, every year the “new” SSPX leads hundreds of “Traditionalists” through these conciliar buildings on European pilgrimages. These pilgrimages are led by SSPX priests, and one sees in the advertisement pictures that “Traditionalists” are kneeling reverently in prayer.

Pilgrimages are good and wholesome in regular times, but now is not the time for such activities to the locations desecrated by the ongoing Conciliar Revolution. We are in full-scale war with this Revolution!

For all the above reasons, we must avoid entering conciliar or other compromise churches to pray or “just to look around” – including the famous churches in Europe. This is a sacrifice for faithful and informed Catholics but is an act of integrity and prudence to offer to Our Lord the King, as well as to avoid scandal.

We would do well to remember the famous quote from St. Athanasius when the Arian heretics of his day took possession of the churches: “They have the churches, but we have the faith.”5 It is clear that St. Athanasius, knowing the horror of heresy, would have been saddened had he heard that some Catholics were entering such Arian churches (or, in our times, entering into conciliar or compromise churches) because of their art, their beauty, their history, etc.

Let us stay out of such churches! We should be completely content and extremely grateful to God that we have the True Faith! Let us not seek those buildings until God delivers them back once again, to be used for holy purposes!

3 Scandal is giving the appearance of evil which makes another person more likely to sin. Summa, IIa IIae, Q.43, a.1, ad 2.

4 Although we should not go into compromise churches to pray or treat those buildings like secular tourist sites, there is a narrow situation where one might go into such a building to fulfill an office of nature without participating in any religious activity. Read this article: https://catholiccandle.neocities.org/faith/other-than-weddings-and-funerals-we-should-never-attend-any-religious-services-of-compromise-groups-or-false-religions



The False “Obedience” of Cowardly and Weak Catholics

Posted on by Catholic Candle

Catholic Candle Note: Sedevacantism is wrong and is schism. Catholic Candle is not sedevacantist. A reader would be mistaken to believe that the article below gives any support to sedevacantism. The article simply shows that we should resist (and not follow) the evil command of a pope or any other superior.



Faithful and informed Catholics know that Our Lord’s enemies have long planned to corrupt the human element of the Catholic Church through false “obedience”. For example, here is the Masonic plan set out 200 years ago, to use false “obedience” to attack the Church:


The Pope, whoever he may be, will never come to the secret societies. It is for the secret societies to come first to the Church, in the resolve to conquer the two [viz., the Church and pope]. The work which we have undertaken is not the work of a day, nor of a month, nor of a year. It may last many years, a century perhaps, but in our ranks the soldier dies and the fight continues. …


That which we ought to demand, that which we should seek and expect, as the Jews expected the Messiah, is a Pope according to our wants. … [With such a pope, we] have the little finger of the successor of St. Peter engaged in the plot, and that little finger is of more value for our crusade than all the Innocents, the Urbans, and the St. Bernards of Christianity. …


Let the clergy march under your banner in the belief always that they march under the banner of the Apostolic Keys. … You will have fished up a Revolution in Tiara and Cope, marching with Cross and banner – a Revolution which it will need but to be spurred on a little to put the four quarters of the world on fire.1


Faithful and informed Catholics know that the Freemasons have accomplished their goal in the human element of the Catholic Church, mainly through Vatican II and the subsequent conciliar church.


Archbishop Lefebvre recognized this successful corruption of the human element of the Church through false “obedience”. Here are his words:


Satan’s master stroke will therefore be to spread the revolutionary principles introduced into the Church by the authority of the Church itself, placing this authority in a situation of incoherence and permanent contradiction; so long as this ambiguity has not been dispersed, disasters will multiply within the Church. … We must acknowledge that the trick has been well played and that Satan’s lie has been masterfully utilized. The Church will destroy Herself through obedience.2 … You must obey! Whom or what must we obey? We don’t know exactly. Woe to the man who does not consent. He thereby earns the right to be trampled underfoot, to be calumniated, to be deprived of everything which allowed him to live. He is a heretic, a schismatic; let him die – that is all he deserves.


Satan has really succeeded in pulling off a master stroke: he is succeeding in having those who keep the Catholic Faith condemned by the very people who should be defending and propagating it. … Satan reigns through ambiguity and incoherence, which are his means of combat, and which deceive men of little Faith. Satan’s master stroke, by which he is bringing about the auto-destruction of the Church, is therefore to use obedience in order to destroy the Faith: authority against Truth.3


In the quote above, Archbishop Lefebvre is talking about the corruption of the human element of the Church since the Divine element of the Church cannot be destroyed and will continue and remain perfect until the end of the world.


So, Satan and the Masons have used the Vatican to cause the corruption in the human element of the Church by using modernist Ecclesiastical authorities to attack and suppress the truth through false “obedience”.4


To help us to avoid this trap of false “obedience”, let us look more carefully at what true obedience is. Here are six points regarding obedience:


  1. True Obedience is Subordinate to Faith and Must Conform to Faith.


  1. We have no duty to “obey” the evil command of a superior.


  1. Not only have we no duty to “obey” the evil command of a superior, but we must refuse to “obey” it.


  1. Not only must we refuse to “obey” the evil command of a superior but we must oppose the accomplishment of that evil command.


  1. We must resist the bad command of any superior, including the pope.


  1. [Objection:] But shouldn’t we wait for good leaders before resisting the evil command of a superior? [Answer:] No! We must act now!

Below, we discuss each of these six points.



  1. True Obedience is Subordinate to Faith and Must Conform to Faith


There are three virtues, Faith, Hope and Charity, which are called “theological” because they have God as their object. Through these virtues, we believe what God has revealed, we trust in God5 and we love God. These Theological Virtues are greater than all other virtues including the virtue of obedience.6


Besides these three Theological Virtues, every other virtue is a moral virtue – it is either one of the four Cardinal Virtues (Prudence, Justice, Courage and Temperance) or is a virtue which “comes under” a Cardinal Virtue and is connected with that Cardinal Virtue.


For example, the virtue of obedience is a subordinate virtue “coming under” the Cardinal Virtue of Justice.7 This is because Justice is giving each person what is owed to him8 and the virtue of obedience is giving our superior the obedience which is owed to him.


We must never obey a lower superior if that superior’s command is contrary to the command of a high superior because then we would be failing to give the higher superior the obedience we owe to that higher superior.9


God is our highest superior, Whom we must obey in all things. We must never “obey” the commands of other superiors which are contrary to the Will of God.10 When Jewish authorities in Israel gave the Apostles commands which were contrary to God’s Will, the Apostles told them “we ought to obey God, rather than men.” Acts of the Apostles, 5:29.


Because we would disobey God by following a bad command of any other superior, following that bad command is really a sin of disobedience.11



  1. We have no duty to “obey” the bad commands of a superior.


Our salvation depends upon discerning the difference between true obedience – which is necessary, and false obedience – which is a sin. Here is how the book, Liberalism is a Sin, explains the duty of any subordinate, contrasting when he receives a good command and when he receives a sinful command:


Obedience to a superior in all that is not directly or indirectly against Faith and Morals is his bounden duty, but it is equally his duty to refuse obedience to anything directly or indirectly in opposition to the integrity of his Faith.12


One of the errors of both the sedevacantists and so-called “conservative” Catholics, is failing to distinguish between opposing the authority of the pope as such (which is a sin), and opposing a pope’s evil exercise this authority (which is good). Both groups falsely hold that if we have a pope, then we must do whatever he says and cannot resist what he does and says.


However, when we resist a superior’s sinful command (or conduct), we do not thereby reject the superior’s authority as such, but only his evil command (or conduct). St. Thomas makes this crucial distinction when he discusses St. Paul resisting St. Peter, the first pope, to his face. Galatians, 2:11. St. Thomas explains that “the Apostle opposed Peter in the exercise of authority, not in his authority of ruling [as such].”13 Thus, while recognizing our superior’s authority, we must oppose his abuse of authority when he commands evil.


St. Athanasius, Doctor of the Church, is our model. He was excommunicated14 because he refused Pope Liberius’ evil command to accept Arian-infected doctrine and the command to not oppose those persons who taught the infected doctrine.


If today’s so-called “conservative” Catholics had been alive then, they would have obeyed Pope Liberius and accepted Arian-infected false doctrine.


If today’s sedevacantists had been alive then, they would have denied that Pope Liberius was a real pope.



  1. We have a duty to refuse to “obey” the bad command of a superior.


Not only do we have no duty to “obey” the evil command of a superior (as shown in the section immediately above), but we have a duty not to “obey” an evil command.


St. Thomas explains this truth as follows:


[S]ometimes the things commanded by a superior are against God. Therefore, superiors are not to be obeyed in all things.15


There is a great difference between doing evil under false “obedience” (which is a sin) and refraining from doing a particular non-obligatory good deed because a superior commanded us to refrain from this deed. Here is how this distinction is explained by Pope St. Gregory the Great, Doctor of the Church:


Know that evil ought never to be done through obedience, though sometimes something good, which is being done, ought to be discontinued out of obedience.16 


We must always obey God and never “obey” anything contrary to God’s Will. We know His Will through reason and the Catholic Faith. Here is how Pope Leo XIII explained this truth:


[T]he nature of human liberty, however it be considered, whether in individuals or in society, whether in those who command or in those who obey, supposes the necessity of obedience to some supreme and eternal law, which is no other than the authority of God, commanding good and forbidding evil. And, so far from this most just authority of God over men diminishing, or even destroying their liberty, it protects and perfects it, for the real perfection of all creatures is found in the prosecution and attainment of their respective ends; but the supreme end to which human liberty must aspire is God. …


[W]here a law is enacted contrary to reason, or to the eternal law, or to some ordinance of God, obedience is unlawful, lest, while obeying man, we become disobedient to God.17


Because an evil command from a superior is, in effect, a command to disobey God’s Will, we should strongly reject such a command just like any other temptation to sin. Here is how this truth is taught by Juan Cardinal de Torquemada, who was the holy and learned medieval theologian responsible for the formulation of the doctrines defined at the Council of Florence:


It is necessary to obey God rather than men. Therefore, where the Pope would command something contrary to Sacred Scripture, or to an article of Faith, or to the truth of the Sacraments, or to a command of the Natural Law18 or of the Divine Law, he ought not to be obeyed, but such command ought to be despised.19



  1. Not only must we refuse to “obey” an evil command of a superior but we have a duty to oppose the accomplishment of that evil command.


Above, we saw that we have no obligation to obey a bad command of a superior. Then we saw that we have a duty to refuse to “obey” this bad command. But our duty is even greater than that. We have a duty to resist the carrying out of that command according to our abilities.


We are soldiers of Christ and we must work to achieve the Will of Christ the King even when the one opposing Christ’s Will is our superior (including the pope).


Satan’s most effective weapon is the Catholic who “doesn’t want to get involved” and doesn’t want to sacrifice himself for the cause of Christ the King. At the beginning of the same Great Apostasy in which we now live, Pope St. Pius X blamed those weak and timid Catholics for Satan’s success. Here are the saintly pope’s words:


In our time more than ever before, the chief strength of the wicked lies in the cowardice and weakness of good men …. All the strength of Satan’s reign is due to the easy-going weakness of Catholics.


Oh! if I might ask the Divine Redeemer, as the prophet Zachary did in spirit: What are those wounds in the midst of Thy hands? The answer would not be doubtful: With these was I wounded in the house of them that loved Me. I was wounded by My friends, who did nothing to defend Me, and who, on every occasion, made themselves the accomplices of My adversaries. And this reproach can be leveled at the weak and timid Catholics of all countries.20



  1. We must resist the bad command of any superior, including the pope.


We must resist the evil commands of any superior. However, the pope is the highest of all superiors on earth. Thus, when discussing the sin of false obedience, wise men often spoke particularly about false obedience to the pope because what applies to resisting the evil command of a pope also applies to resisting the evil command of any other, lower superior.


After setting out the exalted authority of the pope, Pope Paul IV then tells us that we are right to resist the pope whenever he deviates from the Faith. Here are his words:


[T]he Roman Pontiff, who is the representative upon earth of our God and Lord Jesus Christ, who holds the fullness of power over peoples and kingdoms, who may judge all and be judged by none in this world, may nonetheless be contradicted if he be found to have deviated from the Faith.21


The great Thomist and theologian, Saint Cajetan taught:


One must resist the Pope who openly destroys the Church.22


Fr. Francisco Suarez, S.J., was the greatest Jesuit theologian, whom Pope Paul V called “Doctor eximius et pius” (most exalted and pious doctor). Fr. Suarez teaches:


If [the Pope] lays down an order contrary to right customs one does not have to obey him; if he tries to do something manifestly opposed to justice and to the common good, it would be licit to resist him; if he attacks by force, he could be repelled by force, with the moderation characteristic of a good defense.23


Fr. Francisco de Vitoria, O.P., was the great and glorious Thomist of Salamanca, philosopher, theologian, jurist and the Father of International Law. Fr. Vitoria teaches:


A Pope must be resisted who publicly destroys the Church. What should be done when the Pope, because of his bad customs, destroys the Church? What should be done if the Pope wanted, without reason, to abrogate Positive Law [i.e., Church Law]?24


Then Fr. Vitoria answers his own question:


He would certainly sin; he should neither be permitted to act in such fashion nor should he be obeyed in what was evil; but he should be resisted with a courteous reprehension. Consequently, … if he wanted to destroy the Church or the like, he should not be permitted to act in that fashion, but one would be obliged to resist him. The reason for this is that he does not have the power to destroy. Therefore, if there is evidence that he is doing so, it is licit to resist him. The result of all this is that if the Pope destroys the Church by his orders and actions, he can be resisted and the execution of his mandates prevented.25



  1. [Objection:] But shouldn’t we wait for good leaders before resisting the evil command of a superior? [Answer:] No! We must act now!


Catholics must work tirelessly to help their fellow members of the Mystical Body of Christ. Because Catholics seek the good for their friends, they want their friends to share this great good, viz., the truth. To be ignorant of an aspect of the Faith is harmful to salvation, even if the person is not blamable for his error. This is why the Catholic Church is and must be always missionary, although the conciliar hierarchy and compromise groups26 have lost their missionary zeal. In other words, we must abide in the truth and work tirelessly that our friends, our family, and all people, also abide in the truth.


St. Thomas quotes and confirms St. Augustine’s words, that the truth is everyone’s good and correcting an erring superior is anyone’s duty. Here are his words:


If the Faith be in imminent peril, prelates ought to be accused by their subjects, even in public. Thus, St. Paul, who was the subject of St. Peter, called him to task in public because of the impending danger of scandal concerning a point of Faith. As St. Augustine’s commentary puts it:


St. Peter himself set an example for those who rule, to the effect that if they ever stray from the straight path, they are not to feel that anyone is unworthy of correcting them, even if such a person be one of their subjects.27


Another Doctor of the Church, St. Robert Bellarmine, assures us that we are right to resist a pope who uses his office to attack souls (whether through false doctrine or bad morals). Here are his words:


In order to resist and defend oneself no authority is required …. Just as it is licit to resist a Pontiff who attacks the body, so also is it licit to resist him who attacks souls or destroys the civil order, or above all tries to destroy the Church. I say that it is licit to resist him by not doing what he orders and by impeding the execution of his will; it is not licit, however, to judge him, to punish him, or depose him, for these are acts proper to a superior.28


Where matters of faith and morals are involved, resistance to a superior’s bad commands is every Catholic’s duty. The only correct course of action is that taken by Eusebius and so highly praised by Dom Guéranger in his epic work, The Liturgical Year:


On Christmas Day, 428, Nestorius (Patriarch of Constantinople), profiting from the immense crowd assembled to celebrate the birth of the Divine Child to Our Lady, uttered this blasphemy from his Episcopal throne: “Mary did not give birth to God; her son was only a man, the instrument of God.”


At these words a tremor of horror passed through the multitude. The general indignation was voiced by Eusebius, a layman, who stood up in the crowd and protested. Soon a more detailed protest was drafted in the name of the members of the abandoned Church, and numerous copies spread far and wide, declaring anathema on whoever should dare to say that He Who was born of the Virgin Mary was other than the only begotten Son of God. This attitude not only safeguarded the Faith of the Eastern Church, but was praised alike by Popes and Councils.


When the shepherd turns into a wolf, the first duty of the flock is to defend itself. As a general rule, doctrine comes from the bishops to the faithful, and it is not for the faithful, who are subjects in the order of Faith, to pass judgment on their superiors. But every Christian, by virtue of his title to the name Christian, has not only the necessary knowledge of the essentials of the treasure of Revelation, but also the duty of safeguarding them. The principle is the same, whether it is a matter of belief or conduct, that is, of dogma or morals. Treachery such as that of Nestorius is rare in the Church; but it can happen that, for one reason or another, pastors remain silent on essential matters of faith. The true children of Holy Church at such times are those who walk by the light of their baptism, not the cowardly souls who, under the specious pretext of submission to the powers that be, delay their opposition to the enemy in the hope of receiving instructions which are neither necessary nor desirable.29


Where the Catholic Faith and morals are concerned, we must have a great zeal and complete liberty to speak the truth regardless of the feelings or the anger of our superiors.30


A superior is not representing God when he gives an evil command. Charity requires that we correct him.31



Conclusion


Bad ecclesiastical superiors have been using false obedience to attack the truth. They have been corrupting the human element of the Church.


We must always remember that:


  1. True Obedience is Subordinate to Faith and Must Conform to Faith.


  1. We have no duty to “obey” the evil command of a superior.


  1. Not only have we no duty to “obey” the evil command of a superior, but we must refuse to “obey” it.


  1. Not only must we refuse to “obey” the evil command of a superior but we must oppose the accomplishment of that evil command.


  1. We must resist the bad command of any superior, including the pope.


  1. We should join the fight without delay, for Christ the King and against His enemies!

1 Quoted from the permanent secret instruction given to the members of the High Lodge (Alta Vendita) dated 1819. An English translation is found in The War of Antichrist with the Church and Christian Civilization, by Msgr. George F. Dillon, New York, Burns and Oates, 1885, pp 66, 67 & 71 (emphasis added and bracketed words added to show context). Pope Pius IX vouched that this Alta Vendita Masonic plan is authentic.


2 In other words, the Church will be corrupted in Her human element.

3 Quoted from Satan’s Master Stroke, a public statement by Archbishop Lefebvre, October 13, 1974, Le Sel de la terre #94, Autumn 2015 (emphasis added).


4 On this issue and so many others, the SSPX’s current leaders teach the opposite of their founder, Archbishop Lefebvre. For example, when Fr. Arnaud Rostand was U.S. District Superior (before he was promoted and transferred to Menzingen), he asserted that:


[T]he crisis [in the Church] came from the collapse of Church authority.


Quoted from the June 2013 Regina Coeli Report (emphasis added and bracketed words added to show the context).


Similarly, then-seminary rector, Fr. Yves le Roux, lamented the “distrust of authority” in “the ranks of defenders of the tradition of the Church”. Quoted from Fr. Yves le Roux’s 10 November 2013 letter entitled “Subversion or Tradition?”


In other words, the N-SSPX falsely teaches that the problem is that Church authority is too weak (collapsed) or too distrusted. However, faithful and informed Catholics know that the crisis in the human element of the Church is primarily and fundamentally an attack on the truth through false “obedience” and abuse of authority.


5 For an explanation of the difference between the true Theological Virtue of Hope and the vice of presumption, read this article: https://catholiccandle.neocities.org/priests/sspx-the-new-sspx-teaches-the-vice-of-presumption-as-if-it-were-the-virtue-of-hope.html

This article shows that the “new” liberal SSPX now promotes the vice of presumption as if it were the true Theological Virtue of Hope.


6 Here is how St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest Doctor of the Catholic Church, states this truth:


[T]he theological virtues whereby a person adheres to God in Himself, are greater than the moral virtues, whereby he holds in contempt some earthly thing in order to adhere to God.


Summa, IIa IIae, Q.104, a.3, Respondeo. See also, Summa, IIa IIae, Q.4 a.7 sed cont. & ad 3; IIa IIae, Q.23 a.6.

7

Read St. Thomas Aquinas’ marvelous explanation of this truth here: Summa, IIa IIae, Q.104. a2.

8

Summa, IIa IIae, Q.58, a.1.

9

Here is how St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest Doctor of the Catholic Church, states this truth:


There are two reasons, for which a subject may not be bound to obey his superior in all things:


First, on account of the command of a higher power. For as St. Augustine comments on Romans 13:2 (“He that resisteth the power, resist the ordinance of God”):


If a commissioner issues an order, are you to comply, if it is contrary to the bidding of the proconsul? Again, if the proconsul command one thing, and the emperor another, will you hesitate, to disregard the former and serve the latter? Therefore, if the emperor commands one thing and God another, you must disregard the former and obey God.


St. Augustine, De Verb. Dom. VIII (emphasis added; slight editing for clarity).


Second, a subject is not bound to obey his superior if the latter commands him to do something wherein he is not subject to him. For Seneca says (De Beneficiis iii): “It is wrong to suppose that slavery falls upon the whole man: for the better part of him is excepted.” His body is subjected and assigned to his master but his soul is his own. Consequently, in matters touching the internal movement of the will, man is not bound to obey his fellow-man, but God alone.


Quoted from the Summa, IIa IIae, Q104, a.5, respondeo.


10 Here is how St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest Doctor of the Catholic Church, states this truth:


Man is subject to God simply as regards all things, both internal and external, wherefore he is bound to obey Him in all things. On the other hand, inferiors are not subject to their superiors in all things, but only in certain things and in a particular way, in respect of which the superior stands between God and his subjects, whereas in respect of other matters the subject is immediately under God, by Whom he is taught either by the natural or by the written law.


Summa, IIa IIae, Q.104, ad 2.


11 Here is how St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest Doctor of the Catholic Church, states this truth:


[A]nyone who obeys the sinful command of his superior, commits the sin of disobedience to God’s law.


Summa, IIa IIae, Q.33, a.7, ad.5 (“…ipse peccaret praecipiens, et ei obediens, quasi contra praeceptum Domini agens…”).


Here is another way St. Thomas distinguishes three categories related to obedience: 1) true obedience; 2) perfect obedience; and 3) false obedience:


[W]e may distinguish a threefold obedience; one, sufficient for salvation, and consisting in obeying when one is bound to obey: secondly, perfect obedience, which obeys in all things lawful: thirdly, illicit obedience, which obeys even in matters unlawful.


Summa, IIa IIae, Q.104, a.5, ad 3.


12 Fr. Felix Sarda y Salvany, Liberalism Is a Sin, 1886, reprinted by TAN Books, p.84 (emphasis added).

13 Super Epistulas S. Pauli, Ad Galatas, ch.2 lectio III (emphasis and bracketed words added).

14 See, The Voice of Tradition, By Michael Davies, The Remnant, April 30, 1978, page 13-4, citing various authorities showing St. Athanasius was excommunicated.


Pope Liberius’ excommunication of St. Athanasius was null and void. Read the explanation for this truth here: https://catholiccandle.neocities.org/faith/against-sedevacantism.html#question-001

15 Summa, IIa IIae, Q.104, a.5, ad. 3.


16 De Moral., bk. XXXV, §29 (emphasis added).

17

Libertas Praestantissimum, §§ 11 &13 (emphasis added).


18 The Natural Law is what we know we must do by the light of the natural reason God gave us. One example of the Natural Law is that we must never tell a lie. We naturally know this because we know that the purpose of speech is to convey the truth and so we naturally know that telling a lie is abusing the purpose of speech.


Here is how St. Thomas explains what the Natural Law is:


[L]aw, being a rule and measure, can be in a person in two ways: in one way, as in him that rules and measures; in another way, as in that which is ruled and measured, since a thing is ruled and measured, in so far as it partakes of the rule or measure. Wherefore, since all things subject to Divine providence are ruled and measured by the Eternal Law, as was stated above [in Summa, Ia IIae, Q.91, a.1]; it is evident that all things partake somewhat of the Eternal Law, in so far as, namely, from its being imprinted on them, they derive their respective inclinations to their proper acts and ends. Now among all others, the rational creature is subject to Divine Providence in the most excellent way, in so far as it partakes of a share of providence, by being provident both for itself and for others. Wherefore it has a share of the Eternal Reason, whereby it has a natural inclination to its proper act and end: and this participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law. Hence the Psalmist after saying (Psalm 4:6): "Offer up the sacrifice of justice," as though someone asked what the works of justice are, adds: "Many say, Who showeth us good things?" in answer to which question he says: "The light of Thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us": thus implying that the light of natural reason, whereby we discern what is good and what is evil, which is the function of the natural law, is nothing else than an imprint on us of the Divine light. It is therefore evident that the Natural Law is nothing else than the rational creature’s participation in the Eternal Law.


Summa, Ia IIae, Q.91, a.2, Respondeo.

19 Summa de ecclesia (Venice: M. Tranmezium, 1561). Lib. II, c. 49, p. 163B. This English translation of this statement of Juan de Torquemada is found in Patrick Granfield, The Papacy in Transition (New York: Doubleday, 1980), p.171 (emphasis added).


20 Pope St. Pius X, Discourse on the Beatification of Joan of Arc, December 13, 1908.


21 Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio, §1 (emphasis added).


22 In De Comparata Auctoritate Papae Et Concilii, as quoted in Is Tradition Excommunicated?, Angelus Press, p. 20.

23

De Fide, disp. 10, sect. 6, n. 16, in Opera Omnia, Paris, Vives, vol 12.

24

Obras de Francisco de Vitoria, Dialogus de Potestate Papae, para. 4 (Madrid: BAC, 1960), pp. 486f (emphasis added).

25

Obras de Francisco de Vitoria, Dialogus de Potestate Papae, para. 4 (Madrid: BAC, 1960), pp. 486f (emphasis added).

26 Bishop Williamson’s group and the “new” SSPX lack missionary zeal. Read their own words cited to their own sources.


Here are Bishop Williamson’s words: https://catholiccandle.neocities.org/priests/williamson-faithful-catholics-have-a-missionary-spirit-bishop-williamson-tries-to-destroy-this-spirit.html


Here are the N-SSPX’s words: https://catholiccandle.neocities.org/priests/sspx-extinguished-missionary-spirit.html


27 Summa, IIa IIae, Q.33, a.4, ad. 2 (emphasis added).


28 De Summo pontifice Book II, ch. 29, in Opera omnia, Neapoli/ Panormi/Paris: Pedone Lauriel, 1871, vol. I, p. 418.


St. Thomas explains the reason for this distinction St. Robert Bellarmine makes, viz., that we are right to resist (i.e., to correct) the pope or other superior, but we cannot punish or depose him:


A subordinate is not competent to administer to his prelate the correction which is an act of justice through the coercive nature of punishment. But the fraternal correction which is an act of charity is within the competency of everyone in respect of any person towards whom he is bound by charity, provided there be something in that person which requires correction.


Summa, IIa IIae, Q.33, a. 4, respondeo.


The sedevacantists err by denying St. Thomas’ distinction. They depose the pope, by declaring and seeking to persuade others that he is not pope.

29

The Liturgical Year, Vol. IV, Dom Guéranger; Feast of St. Cyril of Alexandria, February 9th (emphasis added).


30 Here is how St. Thomas explained this fact:


To the Prelates [was given an example] of humility so that they do not refuse to accept reprehensions from their inferiors and subjects; and to the subjects, an example of zeal and liberty so they will not fear to correct their Prelates, above all when the crime is public and entails a danger for many.


Super Epistulas S. Pauli, Ad Galatas, 2, 11-14 (Turin & Rome: Marietti, 1953), lec. III, n. 77 (emphasis added).

31

Here is how St. Thomas explains these truths:


Ecclesiasticus, ch.17, v.12 says that God ‘imposed on each one duties toward his neighbor.’ Now, a Prelate is our neighbor. Therefore, we must correct him when he sins. … Some say that fraternal correction does not extend to the Prelates either because a man should not raise his voice against heaven, or because the Prelates are easily scandalized if corrected by their subjects. However, this does not happen, since when they sin, the Prelates do not represent heaven and, therefore, must be corrected. And those who correct them charitably do not raise their voices against them, but in their favor, since the admonishment is for their own sake. … For this reason, … the precept of fraternal correction extends also to the Prelates, so that they may be corrected by their subjects.


St. Thomas’ Commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences, Book IV, distinction #19, Q.2, a.2 (emphasis added).