The Soul and Modern Science

There is an Aristotelian-Thomistic Principle that is so absolute, it has no exceptions, but applies to every corporeal creature.  It is the Principle of Hylemorphism that signifies the composite nature of every corporeal being composed of matter and form.  The union of matter and form is so complete, that even when a human being dies, the separation of body and soul is so unnatural that the immortal human soul is never completely happy until the General Resurrection when we get our bodies back!  We know from Theology that God never intended death for us.  Death is solely a punishment for the Original Sin of Adam. 

 

This principle of Hylemorphism extends even to the inanimate kingdom of the Elements.  St.Thomas has a very emphatic statement of this Principle in the First Part of the Summa in an article “Whether There Are Ideas of All Things That God Knows?”  In the Reply to Objection 3, St. Thomas says:  “Plato is said by some to have considered matter as not created; and therefore he postulated not an idea of matter, but a concause with matter.  Since, however, we hold matter to be created by God, though not apart from form, matter has its idea in God – but not apart from the idea of the composite:  for matter in itself can neither exist, nor be known.”

 

And yet, books and articles by the millions are written and presumably read whose main message is that matter is all that exists!  That only matter exists is the main doctrine of materialism, which is the philosophy of atheism and of most evolutionists.  St. Thomas says that not only can matter not exist of itself, that is, without form, but it cannot even be known!  What actually happens, then, is that all their myriads of books and articles are written as if form existed with the matter – because it is the form that is the actuality of the matter, which is only the principle of potency.  It is form that causes the matter to exist in the actuality of the form.  This is clearly demonstrated by a current article in Scientific American for February, 2013.  “Brain cells for Grandmother” by Rodrigo Quian Quiroga et alia, is a current update in the science of memory, in the larger field of neuroscience. 

 

The subtitle of the article reads:  Each concept – each person or thing in our everyday experience – may have a set of corresponding neurons assigned to it.

 

The term “concept”-  traditionally referred to the spiritual idea abstracted by the intellect from the data of sense, specifically from the phantasm, or image, formed by the sensus communis or synthesizing power of an internal sense.  And so we see here a transformation of the word concept from a purely spiritual meaning to something entirely physical or material.  The synthesizing power of the internal sensus communis is commonly referred to as an encoding process of the neurons.  The neurons, of course, are the completely material nerve cells.  Describing the dominant view of neuroscientists today:  “…the collaboration of very large populations of neurons creates meaning.”  Today’s neuroscientists would have us believe that a sufficient number of physical nerve cells by themselves “create meaning”.  Meaning, of course, is something quite spiritual.  It consists of ideas.  But today’s neuroscientists want us to believe that matter cannot only exist and be known, but can even “create meaning” – all by itself!

 

And yet, they get away with it because they write and work as if the soul-form were present.  The atheists do the very same thing.  They live and work and spew forth their venomous theories just as if the First Principles of all existence really did operate – which they do!  And yet, people continue to believe their lies!  Allow me to refer the reader to the landmark work of the late Dr. Erich Christian.  Dr. Christian was a professional communications engineer and he proved, by many experiments, the absolute necessity for a spiritual form we know as the human soul, in order for memories to be stored and recalled.  His work is entitled “Quo Nadis Scientia and was published by the Remnant Press some years ago.  It is true that this present article in Scientific American - documents a case wherein the removal of the hippocampus resulted in the consignment of short-term memories to oblivion.  Which only proves what we already know – that the intellect of man does rely upon sense data, which is physical, for the physical forms act in order to abstract from them the universal idea or concept, which is the sine qua non of all knowledge, and is a product of the spiritual power of the human spiritual soul, the intellect. 

 

That Catholic philosophers and scientists have allowed such treasures of our intellectual tradition as the entire science of Epistemology to fall into oblivion, to the great glee of Modernists – is surely something they will be called upon to answer for.  The Dominican theologian Guerard Des Lauriers. O.P., now deceased, is a particularly surprising example of the misuse of the hylemorphic distinction and composite.  Some years ago, he proposed that the Pope could be materially but not formally, the Pope.  How could this be?  St. Thomas says, in the same Article  (q.16 I, Reply to Objection 4) – that an accident of a subject, added after the completion of the subject, such as the painting on a house, which was not necessarily in the architect’s original idea of the form, could have its own form.  Such would be the case in all human works of art.  And it is true that the Grace of any Sacrament is an accidental form of the subject which is the human soul.  Perhaps this is the way, after all, to envision the charism of the Papal Office:  as a super added Grace of the Episcopacy!  Where are the Thomistic theologians willing and/or able to solve such problems? 

 

AFTERTHOUGHTS

 

History certainly proves that whatever degree of sanctity a man has attained when he receives the grace of the Papacy, that is the degree in which he will grow as he exercises his office.  In other words, barring a very special, super-added, efficacious, even miraculous Grace, the man elected to the papacy will continue to exercise his degree of virtue and especially will he continue in those intellectual virtues and doctrines he has cultivated all during his life.  The Papacy only gives him the unusual opportunity of putting his virtues and ideas into practice in the most influential public way possible, as Head of the entire Church and Vicar of Christ on Earth.  This is what we see most strikingly in Pope Benedict XVI.  All of his theological works written prior to his election as Pope, give clear evidence of a philosophy of Becoming – in contrast to the Traditional, Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy of Being.  Pope Benedict has set the Church in the evolutionary way of constant becoming – with as much care as possible to maintain at least the appearances of continuity with the past.       

A Challenge from Paula

The Six Days and Irreducible Complexity

 

The same “irreducible complexity” that applies to Michael Behe’s Mousetrap, and to Dr. Duane Gish and God’s Bombardier Beetle, also applies to the Literal 24-Hour Six Days of Genesis One. 

 

I challenge anyone, from any profession or lack of same, to disprove the challenge implied in the above title and following statement. 

 

The Evolutionists assert man’s absence of all necessity in the place he holds in the Darwinian Tree Of Life.  The latest opinion coming from the Darwinian School is that the Tree is better envisioned as a Bush.  In any case, mankind, according to Darwinian Natural Selection, was far from being any kind of necessity for the proper functioning of the Evolutionary Tree or Bush in the Darwinian Scenario for life on Earth. 

Historic Parallels

There is no more plain historical narrative and chronicle than the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, the foundational books of the history of the human race, especially the first three chapters of Genesis.  At the same time, there could be nothing more enigmatically symbolic than the Book of the Apocalypse, the last book of the Bible.  This is the consensus of Tradition.  Also, at the same time, the experts are divided on the Scriptural interpretation of certain passages in St. Paul, concerning the time of the appearance and defeat of the Anti-Christ:  Whether he will come before, or after, the period of peace and restoration of the Church.  (See Father Charles Arminjon) - The End of the Present World, originally published in 1881 and newly translated in 2008 and published by Sophia Institute Press.  See pages 56-68.

 

When the experts disagree, who are we to dogmatize?  At the same time, what can be more striking than the Marian identity of the Woman in Genesis 3:15 and Apocalypse 12?  And finally, what can be more terrifying than the contrast of the man, Adam, made in the image and likeness of the infinitely good and gracious Creator-God and that image of the Beast into which the Second Beast breathes his own hellish life – in Satanic mockery of that divine life of sanctifying grace described in Genesis 1:26 and Genesis 2:7.  Apocalypse 12 and 13 tell us in deeply symbolical images, the last chapters of that eternal enmity between Lucifer and the Woman with Her Son set up in Genesis 3:15.  The battle lines are clearly drawn between the two camps.  Apostles of Truth in the Last Days will also be Apostles of Mary and Apostles of Creation.

 

How could it be otherwise, when the synthesis of all heresies, which is evolutionary modernism, is also the very head of the Serpent, which Our Lady will crush in Her Assigned Role as the Immaculate Heart, to rule alongside that of Her Divine Son.  And She knows all things in the knowledge of God, Her Divine Son.  So we can certainly confide all things to Her with perfect trust. 

 

The Real Middle Earth

This designation of our temporary habitat is a frequent one in Old and Middle English literature.  J.R.R. Tolkien removed it from its proper place in Reality to his fictional fantasy-land of the Hobbits.  He did no favor to us by that displacement.  We need to get re-situated in Real Middle Earth.  Here is a very good description of it by the 14^th century English poet William Langland, in his Dream-Vision of Piers Plowman. 

 

“And I dreamt a marvelous dream – I was in a Wilderness, I could not tell where, and looking Eastward I saw a tower high up against the Sun, and spendidly built on top of a hill – and far beneath it was a great gulf, with a Dungeon in it, surrounded by deep, dark pits, dreadful to see.  But between the Tower and the Gulf I saw a smooth plain, thronged with all kinds of people, high and low together, moving busily about their worldly affairs.”

 

After a great deal more concerning the vast plain full of all kinds of people, plus a great horde of rats, and with them, more than a thousand little mice, who present a drama telling how to deal with the Cat, who is a tyrant.  “And what this dream means, you folk must guess for yourselves, for I haven’t the courage to tell you…”  That is the Prologue.  Book One begins with “The Teaching of Holy Church” who promises to show us the meaning of the Mountain, the Dark Valley, and the Plain full of people.  This is Middle Earth.   

 

The Tower on the hill is the home of Truth, and He would have you obey His Word.  For He is the Father of Faith, who created you all, giving you a body and five senses with which to worship Him while you dwell below…

 

Then I begged Her in God’s Name to tell me the meaning of the fearful Dungeon in the dark Abyss.  That is the castle of Sorrow.  Whoever enters there may well curse the day he was born.  In it there lives a creature called Wrong, who begat Falsehood, and first founded the Dungeon.  It was he who persuaded Adam and Eve to sin, who tempted Cain to murder his brother, and enticed Judas with the Jews’ silver and then hanged him on an elder tree.  He thwarts love and deceives everyone:  those who trust in his riches are the first to be betrayed….

 

 

There follows a description of Truth that equals anything in mystical Theology, for God is Love.  Then the War in Heaven.  And Heaven could no longer hold them.  And they fell, for nine days together, till God in His Mercy stopped their fall…some remained in the Air, some on earth, (and these are the fairies, elves, gnomes, etc.) and some to the depths of Hell.  And Lucifer, because of his pride, lies the lowest of all.  And all those who do wrong must go after death to dwell with him in the Pit – but the righteous who die still honoring Truth, may be sure their souls will go to Heaven, where Truth Himself, dwelling in the Holy Trinity, will enthrone them. 

 

There are twenty Books or Chapters of this kind of vivid, true to life, brilliantly colored and lively characters with Abstract Names, such as Pride, Lechery, Envy, Anger, Avarice, Gluttony, Sloth, but decked out in the most lively animation, bringing these seven deadly sins, and all other such human faculties as Thought, Intelligence, Study and Learning with the necessary virtues in holy array!  What a wonderful Theater of the Real for our jaded, decadent, perdition-prone Society! 

 

Highly Recommended!  Surely available at a Library near you or from Amazon.com

 

P.S.  Harry Potter opens wide the Door to Hell.  

Darwinian Terms and What They Mask

Common Descent masks the fact that God used the same elements and light (atoms and photons) that He created on Day One, to make the entire Plant Kingdom on Day Three, the Celestial Bodies on Day Four, the Marine and Bird Kingdoms on Day Five, and all land animals, insects, and Mankind (Adam and Eve) on Day Six.  (Day Two saw the separation of the Waters and the finite extension of the boundaries of the Universe.) 

 

This Order of Creation constitutes a hierarchical relationship between the beings created on each of the Six Days.  And, it is this hierarchical relationship that accounts for the similarities found between hierarchically related beings.  Much is made of the close relationship between mankind and the chimpanzee.  The chimp has the very same genes in the very same order as humans.  Chimp DNA has a very similar pseudo gene at the same position on the chain as humans.  These similarities do not stem from common ancestry, but from the close relationship of man to the primates in the static, vertical hierarchy of living forms.  It is obvious, for example, that we humans are more closely related hierarchically to the primates than to the canines, the felines, the equines or bovines, just by the fact that the primates seem to share at least a tendency or some potential for being bipedal than do the quadrupeds.  The external similarity is not only reflected in, but flows directly from, the internal operations of the genome of each created kind (bara-min) – of being; of each genera, family, order, class, phyla and kingdom. 

 

Because these grades or kinds of beings are in a distinctly, hierarchical ordering, as opposed to a democratic or dialectical type of order, it is natural that we humans should have more in common, at least externally, with the higher primates, than with horses, cats or with beetles – worms and butterflies.  For even within each family, order, class, phyla and kingdom, we see grades of perfection approaching to, and receding from, some ideal norm which undoubtedly was the first pair created on that specific Day of Creation Week.  This does not rule out, however, a great variety of sub-types or variations within each kind, for God, as the Supreme Artist-Creator-Maker loves variety as His Creation evidences.  But what Darwin called and thought of as a very long, temporal-horizontal process of evolutionary transformations from one or a very few common ancestors, is, in reality, the real manifest static-vertical hierarchy of being, in which we identify stable, immutable kinds, (substantial forms) preserved as the Order of Creation during the present temporal Order of Generation. God used the same elements to create/make all living forms.  But only He could, and did, give to each kind its specific differences, which are still manifest today despite minor variations within the original kinds. 

 

Random Mutations….This phrase carries a double distortion, a twofold false representation of reality.  First of all, and as a First Principle, it must be established that there is no such thing, per se, in itself, as chance or randomness.  What we speak of as chance or random events are simply events, the causes of which we cannot see or know of because of our finite minds.  But God has no such limitations to His Vision, His Knowledge, or any other of His Attributes.  He is simply and perfectly infinite.  Therefore, He is of necessity omniscient.  He knows all things because He created all things.  Therefore, no event, however transitory, fleeting, or by however small a being, can escape His knowledge, which is also absolutely required concurrently, for every nano or micro-particle event, as well as macro beings and events.  Not only does He know all things, however nano or macro, He controls all things because He is the governor of all by His Providence (see St. Thomas’ 5^th Way). 

 

If this were not so, nothing would or possibly could exist, because God alone gives existence to all things, in the beginning by Creation ex nihilo and in toto, and in subsequent time by His concursus, His Providential Governance sustaining all things in existence and micro-managing all their actions.  This factual situation, because of God’s Providence, there is absolutely no such thing as chance or randomness per se.  This fact places the so-called science of statistics and the theories of Probability, in a very precarious and dubious position.  These are probably the very least reliable of anything currently thought of as science, because of their basis in mere guesswork according to numerical ratios and averages.  It is always Derby Day or the Lottery in the “science” of statistics.  The world is nothing but a huge casino where statistics are normative.  And this is precisely where we are when it comes to natural selection working on random mutations.  Natural Selection is simply Darwin’s fictional mask or replacement for the certain laws of nature implanted in each created kind during the first six days of the world, and transmitted in time by generatum - (reproduction).  These laws of nature originated in the Formal Cause of the Substantial Form of each creature and defined its nature, its essence for all time.  The laws of nature also define the limitations of each creature’s potency or potential capacity for change in concert with its Form.  Form limits potency even as potency limits Form, even though Form or Act always precedes potency in the sense that the Form of any being includes its own potentialities or capacities.  These metaphysical principles and priorities also establish the primary of Form over Function.  Laying eggs is a function of the female chicken or bird.  There had, of necessity, to be first of all, the Form of the bird, before the function could follow.  Therefore, the chicken definitely came before the egg. 

 

All of these facts indicate most clearly, that natural selection, and much of what is termed adaptation, is nothing but a sophisticated blanket for what creatures do naturally by reason of their created natures.  In addition, every creature is created with certain defense mechanisms against internal toxins and external predators.  Every creature is supplied by the Creator with an immune system.  There is no such thing as a mythical “natural selection” agency or force at work to supervise or determine the changes in certain beings to direct and ensure their evolution to a higher, better and more “advantageous” state of being.  This fiction is a colossal fraud hiding the marvelous God-Created systems and mechanisms assuring the stability of the Order of Creation throughout time.  Finally, mutations or subtle changes or “mistakes” in the genetic code and its transmission can only be traced to the principle of disorder that is sin.  God created all things GOOD, and VERY GOOD, (Gen.1:31).  A certain very slow and almost imperceptible loss of energy efficiency was bound to be in operation in all of creation just by reason of its being finite, and over all of designated time.  This is known as the 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics, with the First Law of conservation of matter/energy, both of which constitute the undisputed laws of all natural processes.  But the Original Sin of Adam and Eve introduced into the Natural Order, a Principle of Dis-Order for exceeding anything the 2^nd Law would require.  Sickness and eventual death, plus pain and fatigue, were not in the Original Plan of God had Adam and Eve been obedient. 

 

Mutations, then, can only be attributed to the consequences of Sin, both Original and Personal.  And, indeed, the exponential increase in the number and seriousness of diseases since the most ancient times is evidence aplenty of the consequences of sin, as disease and decadence progress together.      

The Third Secret of Fatima and The Second Vatican Council

There are two great truths that are deliberately suppressed by the Conciliar Church, that is, by the prelates who hold power in the Church today. There are only two years and ten months until January of 2017, which will usher in the year of the 100th Anniversary of Our Lady's apparitions and prophecies at Fatima. In 1917 and again in 1929, Our Lady requested the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart. She also said that if Her requests were not heeded, certain dire consequences would follow, such as wars, famines and the annihilation of various nations. The children were shown a terrifying vision of Hell. This vision and the prophecies revealed constitute the 1st and 2nd parts of the now infamous Fatima Secret, the 3rd part of which was to be revealed no later than 1960. However, Pope John XXIII, who convened the 2nd Vatican Council, read the now famous or infamous 3rd Secret and refused to reveal it. That was in 1960, when Our Lady specifically requested, through Sister Lucy, that the 3rd part of the Secret be revealed.

Why did Pope John refuse to reveal this 3rd Secret? Speculations abound, of course, as to the nature of this 3rd Secret, and many, including myself, believe that it must have had something to do with the Second Vatican Council and its disastrous fruits. I submit - and I submit it to the judgment of Holy Mother Church, the One True Guardian and Teacher of the Truths necessary for salvation: I submit that in those merely 25 lines Our Blessed Lady, in Her Own Words, reported faithfully by Sister Lucy, spoke of an evil Council, in such a way as to indicate its nature being such as to destroy the stability, the certitude of Catholic dogma and/or doctrine. The Second Vatican Council has done just this, and Immanentism, because it was motivated, that is, informed in all of its documents, (the infamous ambiguities of agnosticism) - by that one principle doctrine of Modernism, which Pope St. Pius X identified as the false heretical - indeed "synthesis of all heresies" - "a law of evolution" - by which all things, including the Church in her hierarchical structure, Her Worship, (the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and all Liturgy), Her doctrines, (e.g., omit Hell and Purgatory) Her Sacred Books, especially Genesis, and the Faith itself - all these things, according to the "law of evolution" - must change, even be in a constant state of change, e.g., Adaptation or die, i.e., go extinct. This is the goal of evolutionary Modernism, according to Paragraph 26 of the Encyclical Pascendi, and detailed even more in the Syllabus of Modernist Errors, Lamentabili.

But this condemnation of evolutionary Modernism, has been deliberately suppressed, because it exposes the heretical nature of all the documents of the 2nd Vatican Council - informed, as they are, by the false, Hegelian philosophy of Becoming and abandoning the Scholastic-Thomistic Philosophy of Being, with its immutable principles of existence and Essence, Act and Potency, Form and Matter, Substance and Accidents. This latter, with Aristotle's Nine Categories of Accidents, defines the formal objects of all the Natural Sciences, of which Thomistic Metaphysics is the highest and proximate support of Theology, which is properly, Sacra Doctrina, Sacred Doctrine directly based upon and rooted in the inspired and inerrant Word of God in Holy Scripture. These are the Truths that are suppressed: the Catholic Theology that is a synthesis of Truths based on a geocentric, geostatic cosmology, in which all truths of natural reason, including the Existence of God (the Five Ways of St. Thomas not yet superceded or surpassed) and His Creation of all things in Six Literal Days. All the senses of Scripture are based on the literal. Genesis, including all the books considered by Tradition as historical, are historical narratives of mankind's earliest history until the Flood, universal in extent and effect - see the Fossil Record!

In my latest papers, I have developed and proposed a Catholic Cosmology to replace the false Big-Bang Cosmology of the evolutionists and the atheists. But I am unable to obtain even "peer review" so air-tight is the evolutionary Box into which a Judeo-Masonic Cosmology has sealed the Catholic mind. This Judeo-Masonic "conspiracy" is "infallibly" committed to the Copernican-Darwinian synthesis of all Heresies. This is what one Traditionalist, writing in The Remnant, has termed the "ecumenical trench". Call it what you will, it is seeking to be united with that Synthesis of all Heresies that is the Copernican-Darwinian evolutionary "world view". The only alternative is the Synthesis of all Truths, natural and supernatural, that has been given only to St. Peter, with His Power of the Keys, as Head of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Only this One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church has been commanded by Christ to Guard and to Teach the Truths of Faith and of Reason. See the Oath Against Modernism, suppressed by Paul VI, along with the Index of Forbidden Books.

We have lost more than I fear we will ever be able to recover. There is so much apathy, and it leads to the Great Apostasy of 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2, warning us of the coming of the Anti-Christ, preceded by a gradual falling away from the Faith due to an operation of Error, sent by God, into the minds of those who do not love and seek the Truth, but would rather believe and/or allow the lies of a false science (Cf. 1 Tim. 6:20; 2 Tim: 3:7, 2 Tim 4:3-4) to flourish and to corrupt the minds of children constantly exposed to the omnipresent mass media. Beware the Neo-Scholastic textbooks and Manuals that justify a constant, substantial change by making the elements of the Periodic Table to be substances, that is, Substantial Forms, instead of accidental forms of the Body of the Universe - inanimate in their natural state, but also, accidental forms of the living, substantial forms - the bara-min of Genesis One - of the plants, animals, and the one man-kind, by participation. The stability of these fixed Substantial Forms is guaranteed by verses 1-3 of Genesis 2: God finished His work of creating at the end of the First Week of the World. During that first week, He set the pattern of the Day, the Week, the Month and the Year for all Time. This is the Order of Creation preserved in the Order of Generation, wherein all Substantial Forms transmit their Substantial Forms by reproduction and in man's case, by procreation with God - Who alone can infuse the rational, immortal soul. But there is NO Substantial change. The gametes, the reproductive cells in all living forms, are accidental forms of the living, substantial form. Only when the individual of the species or genus or family, etc. dies is there a substantial change.

All processes in all forms, inanimate and animate, all processes are accidental, because the changes effected belong to one or more of the Nine categories of accidents. There is substantial change - only - when the individual of the species dies. The one great and grand exception to this natural rule, rather LAW, is the substantial change that takes place by the miracle of Transubstantiation. This is the only Substantial change that issues in, or is accompanied by life - instead of death - for those who receive Him worthily.

Kyrie, Eleison.

The Book of Genesis, especially the first three chapters, constitute the immutable Order of Creation, and prefigure the Order of the Incarnation in Adam before the creation of Eve. After the deception of Eve by Lucifer and the seduction of Adam by Eve, we find prefigured, the Second Adam and the Second Eve in Genesis 3:15, wherein are established the Eternal Enmities and in Gen.3:16, all the prerogatives of Mary: Her Immaculate Conception, Her Assumption (She did not die), Her miraculous Birthing of Jesus, with no pain or blood, etc. All these Truths of Faith and of Reason are suppressed in order to accommodate that Modernist Synthesis of all Heresies, which is the driving force, the informing spirit and the letter of the Second Vatican Council.

If Traditionalists could unite against the Copernican-Darwinian Synthesis of all Heresies, by replacing it with the Catholic, Geocentric - Six Day Cosmology of Genesis and the Heaemera of the Fathers, building up again a synthesis of all the Truths of Natural Reason and of Faith, we will have won the Great War, and not just the Peripheral brush fires. For even there will not go out as long as the Main Offices of the Vatican - and the Power of the Keys - are in other hands: minds and hearts willing and ready to consecrate Russia and convene the real 2nd Vatican Council - condemning the Errors of Modernism and restoring true Science!

This article is to be produced soon as a pamphlet. For papers on the subjects raised in what is stated above, please consult Paula Haigh at the following address

120 Life Care Way 301-1
Bardstown KY 40004-2059

Phone number: 502-349-7907

Or

Sister Dymphna
PO Box 1892
Owensboro KY 42302
Phone # 1-270-315-8440

It Works Both Ways

A pamphlet by a Protestant Creationist, John Blanchard – titled: EVOLUTION – FACT OR FICTION? (Evangelical Press, 2002), raises the question: Does Evolutionism, cosmic and terrestrial, produce atheism in the souls of men, women and children, or, do Atheists, who are already committed to materialism, use evolutionism, even though they know it is false, to justify their materialism/atheism? (Page 11-12).

I am certain it is both. Just think of the millions of children exposed daily, and even hourly, in the schools, to programs and curricular activities that are based on, and permeated with, the evolutionary worldview of millions and billions of years of “prehistoric” time – during which anything could happen, and actually did happen – just as the scientists tell us it did! Children so indoctrinated from kindergarten on, are not likely to believe the Bible “stories” of Adam and Eve, the Great Flood, the miracles of the Exodus and the words of the Wisdom Books and the Prophets. Why, then, should they also believe the Divine Person of Jesus Christ, Incarnate God, Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, His Miracles, Death and physical Resurrection and Ascension? The very best fruit that Evolutionism could occasion would be the heresy of Fideism, a “faith” existing only in the abstract, divorced from the divine, inerrant Scriptures and Tradition, but zealously devoted to the corporal works of Mercy – especially with the preferential option of “the Poor”. (God help those of us who do not qualify as “Poor”- we will receive neither charity nor justice!)

The Public Atheists such as Victor Stenger, Richard Dawkins, the late Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett – these seem to offer a somewhat different problem. Children are victims with no defenses (in the absence of responsible parents) but the public atheists are men of developed, often highly educated intellect and will. With them there is no excuse (Cf Romans 1:20). God created human nature with an intellect made specifically for Truth and a will made specifically for the real good. But God wanted – and still wants from us – a willing love and devotion, a love freely given, even when other lesser goods appeal most strongly. Today we see Catholic politicians choosing political favor and advancement, rather than speak out strongly against such moral evils as homosexuality, abortion, divorce, etc. We see Catholic Editors of periodicals choosing to be silent or conciliatory on issues involving heresy, such as Atheism, evolutionism, religious indifferentism, etc…- rather than mounting clean and strong defenses of the Traditional worldview. Often, today, the intellect is confused or clouded by the lack of leadership. For many, even most, there is no time for the necessary study that could bring the mind to clear and certain conclusions, especially about matters of science and history.

But for many others, also, it is simply a matter of intellectual laziness – a fatal kind of mental sloth. In such cases, the media, especially the television and movies, are primary instruments for the propagation of moral evil and heresy. Why is there not a prominent defense and offense concerning the issue of Creation versus evolution – similar to the pro-life movement against the end of Abortion? The corruption of the mind by error and heresy is really a greater evil than abortion or homosexuality, because the mind is a higher, nobler faculty than the will. The intellect is the vision of the soul, whereas, the will is blind and must follow what the intellect shows. If the intellect is corrupted by error from infancy, what chance does the will have to choose the real good? Miracles of divine grace happen because Original Sin did not destroy our nature or totally corrupt it. The most degenerate youth today still retain a longing for truth and purity. We must begin to show them the truth and purity of the Catholic worldview of Creation, the Fall, the Flood, all converging in the Incarnation and Redemption of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Second Adam, with the Immaculate Virgin Mary, His Mother and Second Eve.

It will not do to focus on just one dogma or one issue. Not today, when the Evil that overwhelms us is the Synthesis of All Heresies, condemned as evolutionary Modernism in Pascendi and Lamentabili. There is needed a Synthesis of all truths. This is easily constructed on the foundational base of Creation, science and theology, because all things, both natural and supernatural, presuppose Creation. The first article of the Creed is “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth..” There we have the answer to Atheism and Evolutionism. Catholics need to realize how the work of Creation in Six literal – 24 hour Days is the only true answer to the deceptive eons of time based on flawed – radiometric dating methods. Catholics need to know that the Deluge – described in Genesis 6-11 - was of such a magnitude as to lay down all the fossils in the so-called geological column, and to leave such landmarks as the Grand Canyon and the present continental nations. They need to know that the universe is Geocentric and that the present, so-called “solar system” is probably of no earlier origin than the Universal Deluge – wherein the Earth itself ejected large pieces of its own rocky mass into the space around it, producing not only the asteroids, meteors and comets, but most probably also Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and all other wandering, celestial bodies outside of the Sun, Moon and Stars, specified by God in Genesis 1:14-18.

Creation Science and Theology bring to the real splendor of Truth – all the discoveries of modern science for the greater honor and glory of God and the sacred Traditions of His Church. May this day come soon to dispel the double darkness of Atheism – the dark corruption of the intellect and the will, made for Truth and Goodness but today, by the Heresy of Evolutionary Modernism, turned to error and vice. Our Lady of Fatima, destroyer of all heresies – by Thy Heel crushing the Head of the Serpent, Pray for us and come with Thy Son, to save us.

Kyrie, eleison.

Georg Hegel's Idea of Authority and The Current Exercise Thereof

First of all, it is necessary to distinguish the Realist notion of Hierarchy from the Idealist's reduction of Hierarchy to a Dialectic. The reality of Hierarchical Grades of Perfection is manifested in Genesis One - the reality of Headship in Genesis 1:26 - and the fact that all Authority comes from God is based on our Lord's Words to Pilate in John 19:11. The Aristotelian-Thomistic view of Hierarchy is the perception of real, existential relations between really unequal beings. This perception of the Real does not attempt to "transcend" into a realm of "spirit" or "Being" - in which all individuals are absolutely equal. In St. Paul's world of Divine Grace, in which there is neither Jew nor Greek - nor bond nor free - nor male or female - but all are one in Christ - (Gal. 3:28) - the grades of natural perfection and imperfection, - the temporal-natural inequalities, are not cancelled out by the elevations of the soul by Divine Grace. St. Benedict Joseph Labre did not lose his natural, physical nastiness, nor did St. Joseph of Cupertino lose his natural stupidity by reason of the elevations of the soul in Grace.

Therefore, the Head of State, be he Emperor, King, Governor, President or Procurator, is a person invested with a certain kind and degree of real power and "nobility" - that no human power can erase - because such kinds and degrees of nobility are based in the Order of Creation, which all else presupposes. Patriarchy, despite all feminist lamentations to the contrary, is based immutably on Adam's Headship of the Human race and his dominion over all creatures below him. (Genesis 1:26). No human power can change this immutable, created establishment of Hierarchy. It is reflected in every human society, from the most backward and primitive, to the most advanced and technologically sophisticated. Hierarchy, as a principle of Reality, will manifest itself for good or for evil. It is for Good in the benign exercise of Monarchical Headship and lineage and for evil in the brutal dictatorship of tyrants. The Reality that Natural Hierarchy represents and reflects is ultimately found in the Degrees and Kinds of Being (existential) of the spiritual and corporeal world.

The beings closest to God in the Hierarchy are also those with the highest kind and degree of existence, (being). These are the Angels. And even within the Angelic Host, there are degrees of Being - from the highest Seraphim and Cherubim to the lowest Arch-Angels and Angels. On the same Day One that He created the Angelic Host, God also created the vast domain of the elements, unified in the entirely physical, inanimate, Substantial Body of the Universe. These elements constitute the very lowest kind and degree of Being - being "farthest" from God in the Hierarchy of Being - reaching from the lowest Earth to the Highest Heaven and from highest to lowest - example Jacobs ladder. And all in between the Orders of Being are beautifully, Hierarchically arranged from fungi, mold and insects - to reptile, to cat, dog, and horse, to crowning Man: Plant, Animal, Man, Vegetative, sensitive, rational. The Hierarchy defines Reality.

Unfortunately, from earliest times in the History of Philosophical thinking, there has been a tendency to disregard the stunning evidences of a Created Universe "out there" - quite apart from the perceiving human mind. (See the works of Etienne Gilson for the best accounts of this fascinating history.) It was the System of Immanuel Kant - (1724-1804) - and his later disciple Georg Hegel, (1770-1831), who definitively set the stage for today's exercise of Authority. The shift is radical. It is from Hierarchy to Dialectic. The concept of hierarchy is retained, but is "transcended" in favor of a radical, equalizing dialectic of the mind. True to Luther's emphasis on the individual, (See the works of Father Denis Fahey) - at the expense of the common good, Hegel pretends to recognize the superiority of the master and the inferiority of the servant, as having a basis in reality, but insists upon a fictional, natural transcendence of this created relationship, in favor of a radical equality of all individuals. This radical equality comes to be in a process of synthesis, wherein all things contribute equally to the perfection of the whole. This is the Utopian Ideal. Is it real? Is it ever really realized - even in heaven?

The Church, supported by the entire natural order, says no. The Kant-Hegel Idealism, stemming ultimately from Plato and his Myth of the Cave - is not a faithful representation of Reality. Therefore, an exercise of Authority, based on a Hegelian dialectic, rather than on real differences in kinds and degrees of Being, simply will not work. It is unreal. It is a fiction. It is a Utopian dream being played out on the stage of the world before the deluded audience in attendance. Such is the entire New World Order, including the Novus Ordo Missae. Is it valid? Does it even exist apart from the Theater of the unreal and the absurd? Not only does such Utopian Judeo-Masonic Planning attack the Truths of Faith - in a most blasphemous manner, it also mocks the real Order of Creation. As such, we can safely predict that its ultimate exposure will be terrible, indeed. Unhappy those who are part of its downfall - by their complicity in its mockery, and their failure to defend the Truths of Faith and of Reason in the Name of the Creator of Heaven and Earth. (Matt. 10:32-33, Luke 12: 8-12)

History and Some Historians

In an early work, THE KINGSHIP OF CHRIST, according to the principles of St. Thomas Aquinas, (1931), Father Dennis Fahey, a Holy Ghost father who died in 1955, explored the "real history of the world", and found that this real, true history of the world is the account of the acceptance or rejection, by the world, of God's plan for the restoration of the Divine Life.  In other words, it is the story of God's undoing of the awful consequences of Original Sin, taken in conjunction with man's response to God's overtures...(page 33).  This acceptance or rejection of God's plan for order can be most accurately gauged by the degree to which any particular culture or community not only refuses to hinder, but positively works to favor the attaining of man's final end, -  union with God in His inner supernatural life. (pg.37)

 

 

This does not mean that the world of culture becomes like a monastery.  It does mean, however, that the world's customs and entertainments, it's serious businesses and even it's wars, are characterized more by virtue than by vice, or by the encouragement of what leads to virtue, -  such as prayer, rather than by what leads to vice.  

 

 

Father Fahey cites the world of Medieval Europe as having exemplified, probably, the closest any society could come to being "the best of all possible worlds" -  inasmuch as in Medieval Europe "the State then grasped the formal principle of ordered social life in the actual world -  and in which an institution such as the Inquisition -  or any similar police force for keeping "law and order" - was set up to defend the hold of the world on order against the fomentors of disorder", (page 38)  And, of course, the given principle acccepted by all was that man in society, redeemed by Our Lord, is not able to live as God wants him to live - unless he acccepts the supernatural and supra-national Catholic Church - the one true Church founded by Jesus Christ our Lord.  It is only in and from this one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic church, that people find the sources of the interior life, from which proceed the external forms of a culture.  But the modern world has turned aside from order and is suffering for its apostasy and disorder. (page 39).  This great truth needs to be proclaimed unequivocally.  And today we must begin with the restoration of truth in the natural sciences, because there is no theology, but only an abstract or sentimental fideism, without a true foundation in the natural sciences. 

 

 

 

The medieval world possessed such a sound foundation in its Geocentric Cosmology. Cosmology, which defines the Structure of the Universe and the fixed centrality of earth, is the necessary essential of the entire body of knowledge we know as the Natural Order. It is this natural order upon which Grace builds the entire edifice of the Supernatural Order of Divine Grace -   producing the Elect and those beacons of light for us, the Saints.  Any historian who omits in-depth consideration of the relations between the natural sciences and theology, will not give us true or reliable history.  It was first Copernicus - and then his popularizer, Galileo, who first cut the umbilical cord binding the natural sciences to Theology -  by way of Holy Scripture . Without the guidance of the theologians of the Church, the natural sciences were bound to go astray, and so they did.  The end result is precisely what the encyclical Pascendi describes as the subjugation of faith to science - a science falsely so called, (1 Tim. 6:20).  This is a crime of the greatest magnitude -  the synthesis of all heresies -  overturning in men's minds the very hierarchy of reality. 

 

 

It is true that Father Fahey himself never focused on the relation of science to theology as indicated in Pascendi (1907). His focus was the deep disorder introduced by Luther's erroneous doctrine of Grace, in effect making prayer meaningless -  and his emphasis upon the individual -  making the concept of the common good meaningless.  And so it has been with all historians following Father Fahey.  The emphasis has been upon the social order and its concomitant political and social disorders coming down from the sick heads of state.  It has been left for the secular historians such as Arthur Koestler, Thomas Kuhn and Alexandre Koyre, with a host of others, to focus on the Copernican Revolution  and its far-reaching effects on all aspects of culture and civilization.  I appeal especially to Arnaud de Lassus, Father Paul Kramer,  Dr. John Rao -  and all who write about our current crisis of faith,  to turn their scholarly efforts towards what appears to be a great conspiracy of silence, forbidding the exposure of  "the operation of error" (2 Thess. 2:10) - which has overwhelmed the natural sciences in  all their disciplines.  Pascendi warned us of modernisms "Law of Evolution" -  whereby everything - the Church,  her Dogmas - her Worship - Her Sacred Scriptures,  even her Faith itself - must change or die. (#26).  This is the lie upon which modernism is based. 

 

 

This "synthesis of all heresies" -  can only be confronted and combated and eventually overcome and destroyed beneath Our Lady's heel -  buy a synthesis of all truths -  which is the deposit of faith.  Nothing new is needed in this battle.  On the contrary, it is all there in the First Article of the Creed: 

 

 

The existence of God as Creator of heaven and earth.  We need only to make these truths shine forth in all their real splendor. 

 

Kyrie, eleison. 

The Little Flower as Prophet

Not many people, even those most devoted to her, think of St. Therese of Liseux, the little flower, as a prophet.  This is not surprising when one recalls the many passages in her autobiography THE STORY OF A SOUL, wherein she tells of her love for nature, particularly flowers and birds.  She tells of the day out fishing with her dear Papa, " the beautiful blue sky became suddenly overcast and soon the thunder began to roll and the lightning to flash through the dark clouds. I saw it strike a short distance away and far from being frightened, I was thrilled with delight because God seem to be so close!..."(Pages 37 and 38 in the Autobiography Translation by John Clark, OCD., 1CS,1975).  Even more significant, is the passage wherein Therese tells of her growing love for learning.  She was in her early teens:  "I had always loved the great and the beautiful, but at this epoch in my life, I was taken up with an extreme desire for learning.  Not satisfied with the lessons and work my teacher was giving me, I applied myself to some special studies in history and science, and I did this on my own. The other studies left me indifferent, but these two subjects attracted all my attention -  in a few months, I acquired more knowledge than during my years of study.  Ah! - This was really only vanity and affliction of spirit.  The chapter in THE IMITATION, which speaks of knowledge came frequently to my mind..."  (page 101). 

 

 

Was it not these earlier impressions made by the very emphatically empirical, and materialistic science of her day (1873 through 1897), that prompted and allowed the holy ghost to show her at the end of her life, where that knowledge was to lead the world.   Darwin's ORIGIN, had shocked the cultural milleux - of Europe only some 14 years before she was born in 1859.  And so, during the August before her ecstatic death of love, September 30, Mother Agnes (her sister Pauline) has this entry in her notebook.  "one evening, in the infirmary, she was drawn to confide her troubles to me more than she usually did.  She had not yet opened up in this way - on this subject.  Up until then, I had known her trial of faith only vaguely.  (page 257 in LAST CONVERSATIONS).   I interject here, the comment that mother Agnes apparently relates the following words of St. Therese to Therese's trial of faith, not seeing the broader references to the world at large.  Also, not seeing the importance of these words themselves, she, Mother Agnes, failed to record the entire prophecy - for such it was.  These are the words of St. Therese, recorded by mother Agnes:

 

 

"If you only knew what frightful thoughts obsessed me.  Pray very much for me, in order that I do not listen to the devil, who wants to persuade me about so many lies.  It's the reasoning of the worst materialists, which is imposed upon my mind.  Later, unceasingly making new advances , science will explain everything naturally -  we shall have the absolute reason for everything that exists and that still remains a problem, because there remain very many things to be discovered, etc." - Apparently, Mother Agnes did not record the entire words concerning the discoveries of science, but we, in hindsight, can fill in the events she saw in vision. The words of Therese warn us of the atheism that the false science of evolutionism produces.  It is the fulfillment of what PASCENDI describes as the subjugation of faith to science - to what poses as true science.  St. Therese went on to say, as recorded by Mother Agnes - Finally, I offer up these very great pains to obtain the light of faith for poor unbelievers - for all those who separate themselves from the Church's beliefs.  Mother Agnes interjects,"she added that she never reasoned with these thoughts"  In other words, she did not attempt to argue with the devil, much less to dialogue with him, as Eve had done. Therese concludes,  I undergo them under duress,  but while undergoing them, I never cease making acts of faith."

 

 

So St. Therese, pray for us - who live in the darkness of this false science, that we too, never cease making acts of divine faith in all the truths of faith and of reason.

A Note About EWTN

I find Marcus Grodi and his program on EWTN - JOURNEY HOME - intolerably boring. In fact, I find all of EWTN programming awfully boring, which is to say, lacking in real interest, which is further to say, irrelevant. It seems to be a case of the absolute lack-lustre of the visible church, which must include the Traditionalists, of which I count myself one. I think what makes Marcus Grodi's program particularly dull is the fact that it is so obviously a fun little ego-trip for every one of his guests. And each one is also pretty much the same. I may well have missed some spectacular stories of conversion, but, it seems to me, that a really interesting conversion story would not be at all focused on the person of the one converted, but on some great truth of faith, or of reason, that caused the conversion and dominated the life thereafter of the converted one. Take St. Paul. He was first and foremost, the Apostle to the Gentiles. The fact that he was a prominent teacher of the law, and even persecuted the Christians, was important only insofar as it prepared and lead up to his great mission as Apostle to the Gentiles.


Marcus Grodi's guests drip with sentiment, and this is exactly the element absent in the life of St. Paul, model of converts, if I may so call him. Now, I am sure I will be seen as a monster, though a little one, of PRIDE, if I compare my own conversion to that of the great St. Paul. Well, so be it. But I find my own story singularly lacking in anything akin to sentimentality or religious emotions and experiences. What there was of this... concerned other people. I could relate some very edifying stories of the holy people God placed in my pathway to strengthen my own weak faith. But I want to get to the main point and it is this: Our Lord said to Pilate in John 18:37 - "For this was I born, for this came I into the world, to give testimony of the Truth." I think that ought to be the "mission statement" of every Catholic, and especially of converts to the Catholic faith. I believe I was brought into this world to give testimony to the Truths about Creation, the First Principles of natural reason, and certain truths about literary theory and art in general. Aside from the these truths, my life is as boring as anybody else's. This may be because we live in a time when Creation, natural knowledge, and the entire truth-hierarchy of the natural order have taken a beating unlike any in the history of the world. That alone makes a witness to the Truths about Creation, not only interesting, but a case for martyrdom of one kind or another.


The 19th century was known for its polemical literature. It was scintillating with relevance and interest, because it directly dealt with the evils of the day - then termed rationalism - but really signified evolutionism. There was also a tremendous literature on the subject of Protestants and the eternal consequences of their failure to become Catholics. But today, all these very thorny issues have been defanged - (pardon the mixed metaphor). All acidic tonics have been neutralized. Thus, the intolerable boredom of all issues most relevant to our eternal salvation:

I must add that I am especially grateful to EWTN for providing the Chaplet of Saint Michael, the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, and the Rosary- so that those of us who are alone (in more ways than one) - may be able to recite these precious prayers in the company of other Catholics.

Areas of Research

If and when Catholic scientists renounce the heresy of Evolutionary Modernism, and the errors it produces in the Natural Sciences, - those below metaphysics - there are at least two very fertile areas of research awaiting them. The boundary limits between the plant or "vegetative" soul - or vital principle - and those of the animal or sensitive "soul". Both of these kinds of being are material in their ultimate principles, and I submit that they are electrical in nature. It seems they must be so - of necessity - because the criterion of the physical, is that it can be measured. It is a quantity. All the other eight categories of accidents are based on some quantity. A second, most fertile area of research awaiting Catholic scientists, is the principle or principles of order governing the inanimate realm of the elements. Another name for these principles of order is physical laws. Many of these have been - and are - still in progress of being discovered. Such are the types of electron spin.


But there is needed... more general laws - that will unify the science of physics, along with chemistry. For this, the scientist must rise to a knowledge of Metaphysics. He might well begin, since the 2013 hurricane-tornado season is upon us, with a study of Blessed Hildegarde of Bingen's - 12 Cosmic Winds, in her Geocentric Universe. (See Robert Sungenis and Robert Bennett, - GALILEO WAS WRONG - THE CHURCH WAS RIGHT - in Volume Two. These ultimate principles must also be, I submit, electrical in nature, because electricity is the least material of all physical-material causes. In all of the areas mentioned above, we are searching for the material-formal causes of the created beings, from the Universe itself - down to the virus, the bacteria, the fungus, the marine plankton - in all of their marvelous geometric variety!

To The Editor of the National Catholic Register

I submit some remarks about the article by David DeCosse (National Catholic Register October 25 through November 7, 2013 - page 19-25), entitled "IMBALANCE UNDERMINES BISHOPS CAMPAIGN." What first alerted me to the key issue of "imbalance", was DeCosse's use of the term function when describing the first of the three "oddities" in the homily given by Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia. Instead of speaking as Mr. DeCosse thinks he should, Archbishop Chaput says that "freedom of conscience is a function of freedom of religion: the truly valuable conscience is fired with the spirit of discipleship." The word function, I submit, is entirely out of place here. It is a term very familiar to those working in the natural sciences, especially mathematics, where function is very narrowly and precisely used to refer to a specific "designated task." In fact, my QPB Science Encyclopedia, gives only the term function as used in computer science and mathematics. Is DeCosse and/or Archbishop Chaput happy with reducing essentially moral human actions to the function of an algebraic equation? Well, yes, they are speaking analogically. Okay, but I suggest that we can also use this term analogically, in metaphysics, where function is a process, necessarily performed under the direction of the Substantial Form of the being, in which that function operates as an accidental categorical form.


In this sense, the function must, of necessity, be one either of the natural order or the supernatural order of Divine Grace. In any case, this function is the act of a human being endowed by his or her Creator with the gift of freedom to choose, or "free will"." This freedom may be designated, as Mr. DeCosse does so designate it, as a moral prerogative. Now, unfortunately, I do not have a Webster's dictionary at hand here in my 1/2 nursing home room, though I do have my QPB Science Encyclopedia, as you have seen from the above. (My priorities are slightly skewed, I admit), however, I think of prerogatives as privileges. For example, and as the primary example, the Blessed Virgin Mary, as the second Eve, (with our Lord Jesus Christ the second Adam), was in a direct - corrective opposition to the punishments inflicted upon the first Eve for her sin of disobedience: her conceptions were multiplied with their sorrows - her birthings would be accompanied by pain and blood, as they are today, and her subjection to her husband was to be of an excessive kind, (Genesis 3:16). But of a moral and physical necessity - Mary's prerogatives were a miraculous, divine, single conception of the God-Man; His birth, also miraculously without any labor or shedding of the Virginal Blood and totally joyful.


Finally, Mary's relationship with St. Joseph and his with Her, were full of supernatural charity and respect - a model of spousal union. I do not see how DeCosse's use of this term, moral prerogative, can designate anything but the power we all have to choose, by the use of our free will, to do good and avoid evil. It is in this intellectual vision of what is good and what is evil, that the moral prerogative is seen in all of its privileged splendor. I submit that this hierarchical relationship of intellect and will when it comes to human actions involving contraception and all that may involve in the way of drugs - devices or elaborate keeping accounts etc., for planning - the intellect plainly shows that such actions are radical interferences in the totally natural processes of fertilization and normal gestation. So, the will chooses either to respect the natural order as God created it and mandated the natural processes when He said: "Increase and Multiply"... or the will can choose to interfere with this natural, normal process of conception and gestation and to prevent its normal operation. This latter choice is obviously a choice made against nature and a choice that the Church - as Guardian and Preserver of all natural processes known as the Natural Law, inscribed in our humanity and seen operating even in the animals below us in nature - the Church rightly warns us that when we misuse and abuse this moral prerogative, we sin gravely.


The Church, therefore, attaches penalties to sins against the natural, moral laws and also against Her own Supernatural laws and precepts, as is Her right as the Guardian and Preserver of the created goods of the Order of Creation given in Genesis One, as well as of all those Supernatural Goods stemming from the New Creation of the Order of Grace that came with the Incarnation and Redemption. In this sense, too, Mr. DeCosee, the dogmatic statement that "error has no rights", is simply one of those timeless - unchanging truths, that will always be here to remind us that, while yes, we have this freedom to commit sin and to offend God, it cannot reasonably be said that we have a right to do so. Don't you agree? I understand that you do not think you are offending God. But look at it this way - the Order of Nature is God's creation. You would be offended if someone attacked and destroyed something you had made or owned. God is very much offended by attacks upon His Creation, especially something so exquisitely designed as the process of reproduction.

Please think about this.

Transforming Union

I am hearing on EWTN, only now and then, and from persons I cannot name, what I submit may be a rather serious heresy. It concerns not only the summit of mystical theology, the transforming union, but also the effect of our reception of Holy Communion. The reality of substance is crucial. What happens when we receive our Lord, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, in Holy Communion is entirely a qualitative - which is to say - accidental union and not of the substance of the soul. The same is true of the mystical-spiritual transforming union. This is in no way to minimize the degree of perfection such a union signifies. It is seen only in the canonized Saints,(generally speaking). It requires, and or presupposes, heroic virtue. The sisters of St. Therese, clearly witnessed such heroism, in the last months especially, of Therese's life.

Read the published LAST CONVERSATIONS, for very obvious examples of the heroic virtue manifest in the transforming union. But the point I wish to emphasize - and I submit all to the judgment of Holy Mother Church, is that there is no substantial change in the human soul, in this transforming union, nor in the greatest effect possible of Holy Communion. Our souls remain substantially human. We are "divinized", only accidentally, not substantially. This is not to derogate the union, but only to point out that we do not become God, which would be heresy to believe. We do become God-like, in a degree that grows with our cooperation with Divine Grace. Transforming union is the summit of the spiritual life and is open to all who are called to a life of prayer. According to many spiritual authorities, this means everyone who is baptized! Another common error, and one not unrelated to that just discussed, is what happens to the food we eat. Food is of two kinds and they are quite different! Many plants transmit the vital principle or substantial form of their being - in seeds that we eat. The cereal grains such as wheat and nuts, like walnuts pecans etc. When these seeds enter our digestive tract - they do not sprout and begin to grow - as into a bean plant or stalk of wheat

Rather, they begin to disintegrate and reduce to the nutritive elements, such as amino acids, proteins, carbohydrates, sugars and minerals, that our bodies utilize as vital nourishment. The point is - that the only substantial change that takes place is in the individual plant or tree, that - (eventually with the nut tree) - dies. We can say that the seed or grain as carrier of the plant's vital principle, dies in our digestive process. There is no substantial change in our bodies as a result of eating anything - even God Himself in Holy Communion. Where ordinary food is concerned, the individual plant and/or animal dies, and that is a substantial change for the individual - but not for the species, which continues to be transmitted by reproduction. Even in human reproduction, there is no substantial change. The ovum and the sperm are both cells of the male and female bodies. They are, therefore, accidental forms - not substantial forms. If they were substantial forms, they would refuse to unite. They do unite in reproduction, which is not a substantial change, but simply or complexly - the pro-creation of a new substantial form. The human being as conceptus - when God infuses the rational human and immortal soul into that tiny conceptus.

Incidentally, all virtues of the supernatural order, because they are entirely spiritual and thus unlike those human virtues of the natural order, have no basis in quantity. They are entirely qualitative and spiritual. This is why St. Bernard could say - that the only measure of our love for God is to love Him without measure. Of course, only in God, is every attribute infinite. Many saints tell us, that our own feeble virtue is potentially infinite - in that it strives to be without measure... especially when it comes to that greatest of all virtues, charity. All physical objects are measured by the electro-magnetic spectrum and the frequency they measure - according to it. Scripture tells us that God has ordered all things in measure, number and weight. (Wisdom 11:21). That is the physical and therefore quantitative. This same book of Wisdom (8:1) - tells us that Wisdom, which is the highest of the gifts of the Holy Spirit,... reacheth.. from end to end mightily,and ordereth all things sweetly. Might and sweetness are qualities, and if supernatural, that is, of Divine Grace, they cannot be measured. The Master assures us - that His yoke is sweet and His burden is light (Matthew 11:30). All the sourness and all the heaviness that irks us, comes entirely from our self-love and self-centeredness.

So there is only one kind of substantial change in the natural order, and that is the death of the individual plant, animal or man. Our individual death does effect the substantial change of separation of soul from body. Soul and body, in man, form one substantial form, - one substance. Death is an awesome change, but take comfort from the Preface for the Mass for the Dead ....that those whom the certainty of death afflicts - may be consoled by the promise of future immortality. For thy faithful, O Lord... life is changed, - not taken away. The abode of this earthly dwelling being dissolved - an eternal dwelling is prepared in heaven. All other changes are accidental - involving the actions of those wonderfully versatile elements, whose obedient operations are beyond any human imagining for marvelous design. And yet, these accidental changes are all of the natural order.

The great miracle of Transubstantiation, is entirely supernatural, for the elements are mute. For the first and only instance - of all their wondrous arrangements - with reports therof, they must remain silent, and obediently cover the most stupendous event in all of creation, as they stand guard, as it were, over the transformation of lowly bread and wine - grain of the field and fruit of the vine - into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of the Word Made Flesh, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Redeemer. This is truly a change of substance - a transubstantiation that does not issue in death, but in divine and eternal Life. For by dying, He overcame our death, and by rising again - hath restored our life. (Preface for Easter). But the wise virgins took oil in their vessels - with the lamps. (Matthew 25:4.) This singular parable is specific for the Last Days - for it begins,"Then shall the kingdom of heaven be like to ten virgins - who taking their lamps, went forth to meet the Bridegroom and the Bride." (Matthew 25:1)

It is obviously full of symbols - which it is necessary for us to know and to practice - if we are to be among the wise virgins, who were ready when the Bridegroom came and went in with Him to the Marriage. And the door was shut. Our salvation is at stake - for those foolish virgins - who had no oil for their lamps and had run off to buy oil when the Bridegroom came - so that when they finally did arrive - they found the door shut to them. Not only that the Bridegroom Himself refused to open the door to them, because He did not know them. Knowing, in Scripture, always means the deepest and most intimate knowledge... spiritual as well as carnal. For virgins, this knowledge is entirely spiritual and even abhors the merely carnal. What are the lamps... what are the vessels and what is the oil? These are most important symbols of spiritual realities and signify things necessary for salvation.

Now, please check me on the following, because I do not have access to my reference books. I think it is the consensus of Catholic commentators that the lamp, with its shape, its wick and the flame of its fire is Supernatural, that is, Baptismal - Theological Faith, Hope and Charity. These three virtues are necessary for salvation. Since it is the oil that burns.. the oil is charity. Hope is the wick- and the lamp is Faith. The three theological virtues are so closely related, as almost to be one instead of three. And yet, St. Thomas is clear that an abstract kind of Faith, yet fastened to the will, also can exist without Hope and Charity. But it is certainly a precarious kind of Faith. Some, especially men, are said to cling with a persistent Faith, to the intercessory power of our Blessed Mother Mary - and not without good reason. What are the vessels that apparently only the wise virgins carried with the lamps? The lamps of the foolish virgins went out for lack of this extra oil carried in vessels with the lamps.... that is, in addition to the lamps.

In these Last Days of Darkness, everyone will need lamps just to survive spiritually - but only the wise ones carry extra oil in vessels with the lamps. Why only 10? And why virgins? What worse fate can one imagine than to hear those awful words of our Divine Lord: " I know ye not!" Jesus, Mary, Joseph, save us for Thy Glory.

Kyrie, Eleison!