Monday 30 October 2017

500 years of Heresy

Martin Luther's legacy -
Nazism, Same-Sex 'Marriage'
and Halloween

Nazi  propaganda poster from 1933
reads, “Hitler’s fight and Luther’s
teaching are the  best defence
for the German people.”
It's hard to keep Martin Luther out of the news these days especially this week as Thursday 31 October 2017 is the 500th anniversary of his in-famous nailing of his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. Perhaps it's no surprise that the day he did so also coincides with the ancient pagan festival of Samhain when the spirits of the dead were supposed to visit their homes. As Catholics of course we believe that demons exist as does the Devil and on this day the Devil is often invoked by pagans. Is it more than a coincidence that Luther chose this day to nail his theses to a church?

In doing so he ended up by splitting Christendom and many of those who rallied to his cause had other motives; they wanted to have a divorce, or marry their mistress as in the case of one of his great supporters of "Reform" Philip of Hess who had a concubine, or grab church property and turn it to their own personal secular use.

The sayings of Martin Luther surely condemn him as an anti-Christ.

Here are a few of his "great" theological sayings:
“I look upon God no better than a scoundrel” (ref. Weimar, Vol. 1, Pg. 487. Cf. Table Talk, No. 963). - CUT - For a start is this man even a Christian? Perhaps this is why he chose one of Satan's feasts to nail his theses to a church door?

“I have greater confidence in my wife and my pupils than I have in Christ” (ref. Table Talk, 2397b) - CUT - well no wonder anything goes in Protestant Churches!

"Christ committed adultery first of all with the women at the well about whom St. John tells us. Was not everybody about Him saying: ‘Whatever has He been doing with her?’ Secondly, with Mary Magdalen, and thirdly with the woman taken in adultery whom He dismissed so lightly. Thus even, Christ who was so righteous, must have been guilty of fornication before He died.” (ref. Trishreden, Weimer Edition, Vol. 2, Pg. 107. – CUT - Just another one of the blasphemous sayings of a man who is regarded as “great reformer”!

“St. Augustine or St. Ambrosius cannot be compared with me.” (ref. Erlangen, Vol. 61, pg. 422) CUT - Modest too.

Martin Luther's love for his fellow man
“To kill a peasant is not murder; it is helping to extinguish the conflagration. Let there be no half measures! Crush them! Cut their throats! Transfix them. Leave no stone unturned! To kill a peasant is to destroy a mad dog!” – “If they say that I am very hard and merciless, mercy be damned. Let whoever can stab, strangle, and kill them like mad dogs” (ref. Erlangen Vol 24, Pg. 294). CUT - well not much Social Justice here either.

Where did the Nazis' hatred of the Jews really come from - Martin Luther?
“The Jews deserve to be hanged on gallows seven times higher than ordinary thieves.” (ref. Weimar, Vol. 53, Pg. 502). CUT - No wonder that Nazism hated the Jews

Martin Luther by Cranach
Look like a bully
“My advice, as I said earlier, is: First, that their synagogues be burned down, and that all who are able toss sulphur and pitch; it would be good if someone could also throw in some hellfire… Second, that all their books– their prayer books, their Talmudic writings, also the entire Bible– be taken from them, not leaving them one leaf, and that these be preserved for those who may be converted…Third, that they be forbidden on pain of death to praise God, to give thanks, to pray, and to teach publicly among us and in our country…Fourth, that they be forbidden to utter the name of God within our hearing. For we cannot with a good conscience listen to this or tolerate it… He who hears this name [God] from a Jew must inform the authorities, or else throw sow dung at him when he sees him and chase him away”. (ref. Martin Luther; On the Jews and Their Lies, translated by Martin H. Bertram, Fortress Press, 1955). CUT - I think that's enough of Luther's views on the Jews but there are lots more where these come from.

What about Luther on the Sanctity of Marriage?
“If the husband is unwilling, there is another who is; if the wife is unwilling, then let the maid come.” (ref. Of Married Life). CUT - Where is the teaching of Jesus on marriage in this godforsaken man and his church?

“The word and work of God is quite clear, viz., that women are made to be either wives or prostitutes.” (ref. On Married Life). CUT - So much for equal rights of women here then, no wonder that God has abandoned Lutheran women "clergy" to Lesbianism.

So what has the father of Protestantism bequeathed the Church?
Well within 10 years of the first Protestant baptism the church in which it took place was closed. The areas that are Protestant in Europe close to where the Reformation started have the lowest Church attendance in the Christian world, the lowest baptisms and are the most secular. The Baltic states are now only 20% Christian the rest are mainly atheist except for Poland which is Catholic and has one of the highest church attendances in the world.

So what about his legacy?
Many say it is because of Luther's almost pathological hatred of the Jews that Protestant northern Germany was so ready to accept the Nazi party and Hitler in opposition to the Catholic German bishops who throughout the ages came to the rescue of the Jews often when ordinary Catholics expressed anger at their disproportionate power and wealth as they believed this was at the expense of ordinary Christians.

Pro-abortion Protestant clergy "bless" abortion clinic 
Today we can see Luther's "fruits" in the constant distancing of Protestant moral theology from the teaching of Christ and His apostles, for example the many Protestant Churches' failure to support the Culture of Life and support Catholics in the prayer vigils outside abortion clinics, which of course Jeremy Corbyn wants to ban by law.

Eva Brunne - Lutheran
"Bishop" of Stockholm
But perhaps the clearest manifestation of Protestant disbelief and rebellion against Christ is the performing of same-sex "marriages" in their churches. Too quick are they to worry about the Zeitgeist and the church coffers. Branches of the Anglican Communion form a case in point, even now ready to acquiesce in the main stream media's brainwashing and marry those who diabolically believe that they were born to be attracted in a sexual way to their own self's sex, this is nothing but Satanic. Despite the Government exemption of Angliancism from performing same-marriages, the Scottish Episcopal Church (part of the Anglican Communion) has already done it. Of course the Lutheran "Church" has been doing this for years. And the Lutheran Bishop of Stockholm Eva Brunne is openly Lesbian, and been in some sort of "union" with another "priestess" of the Lutheran "Church"; this "Church" has blessed this union. However, this is so far from the teaching of Christ and his apostles that it beggars belief. Brunne also proposed the removal of crosses from Stockholm's Harbour church and a direction indicator to Mecca installed so that Muslim visitors will know in which direction they should pray.

However, before we laugh too loud at our fallen Protestant brethren many believe that Pope Francis hopes to take the Catholic Church down the same heretical path!

Monday 23 October 2017

Anthem Protest

All stand for the National Anthem



In one of his books, a fictionalisation of his illustrious family's history, Péter Esterházy comments on standing up when the National Anthem is played on television: “The National Anthem lifts us out of our everyday lives, raises us into the timelessness of eternity, while television takes us nowhere.” By which he, or the character to whom the words are ascribed, means that, when considered precisely as a symbol of the nation, a National Anthem should inspire in its hearers a feeling of patriotic pride, a dedication to duty, and a selfless love for one's fellow-countrymen.  It should place the individual in relation to the nation, which is a forum in which the virtues developed are exercised.  Patriotism is in itself a real virtue which St. Thomas classifies as a species of justice whereby we demonstrate our gratitude for the fellowship of the community and all the benefits of citizenship, and recognise our community as a wider family, the milieu into which it has pleased divine providence to place us.  The routine mockery and denigration of patriotism and patriots by the BBC, certain other media outlets and elements of the political class indicates not merely their adherence to the revolutionary values of chaos and disorder, but also real rejection of divine goodness and a hatred of the holy in its everyday expression.  Patriotism is a species of piety, the virtue enjoined by the fourth commandment, and it detractors almost invariably oppose religious piety as well as the love of country that is an extension of filial or familial love.  These opponents of patriotism are untrustworthy and dishonest without exception.

Of course, there have been historical situations in which a people found itself alienated from some political regime or other, and looked to some more local loyalty as the basis of its patriotic fervour.  There have also been nations that have failed their people; indeed, a nation state may be judged very strictly according to its effectiveness as a vehicle for individual and collective human development, as St. John Paul II said: “The history of the nation deserves to be adequately appraised in the light of its contribution to the development of man and humanity, to intellect, heart and conscience.”

Those are, however, rare and extraordinary situations.  Ordinarily speaking, to stand for or sing the National Anthem and to honour the flag are the simplest of gestures, so simple as almost to be reflex actions.  The rejection of anthem and flag are not simple acts of political protest in opposition to the Government of the day; it is, rather, a profound rejection of the nation, the people, or at the very least, of the current political expression of the people, the State as currently constituted.  It is, then, a statement of disloyalty, a statement to those who remain loyal that they are held in contempt by those who choose this mark of rejection.  Yes, in the extreme such a gesture may well be justified, when the flag was that of the Spanish Republic, the Derg's Ethiopia, the Soviet Union or the anthem that of East Germany.

Readers are well aware that I do not write in a vacuum, or about hypothetical matters, but in the context of the high profile American protest undertaken in the first instance by sporting figures led by Colin Kaepernick and later by entertainers in support of the Black Lives Matter campaign.  Needless to say, the individuals involved enjoy far more than the basic benefits of citizenship, their fame and vast fortunes are derived solely from the opportunities their lives in America make available to them.  When celebrities choose to participate in such protests they manifest their contempt for the people who made them rich and famous, and their arrogant belief that they are above gratitude, patriotism or fellow-feeling with their local communities.

It is also worth looking closely at the campaign to which they have chosen to attach themselves.  The media routinely present Black Lives Matter as being a group that formed itself spontaneously from the friends and relatives of black people killed by the police, the clear implication of the name being that their opponents believe black lives do not matter.  The truth, however, is that the campaign is organised over social media by individuals connected with the Black Liberation Collective, which regards itself as a latterday reincarnation of the Black Panther Party and movement.  It is insurrectionary and revolutionary in its ideals, but talks about use of Gandhian non-violence as a tactic.  The use of protests in a sporting arena is a deliberate harking back to the 1960s, recalling the clenched fist salutes at the Mexico City Olympics.  The objective is to precipitate a polarisation of society around racial identity in which people of colour separate themselves from white communities and seek self-determinatioin funded by reparations for historic wrongs committed by the colonising or slave-owning powers.  So far, efforts to extend the movement beyond North America have met with only limited success although it is certainly to be found, on university campuses across the United Kingdom and Western Europe, and its rhetoric is routinely employed by student activists inspired (I might almost say 'radicalised') by material posted on the internet.

There is a very long history going back decades, at least to the pro-Soviet campaigners of the inter-War years, of celebrity support for radical causes – remember the Redgraves and Hanoi Jane?  These people are so accustomed to adulation that they really believe they are better than the rest of us, and simple patriotic decency is beneath them.  They succumb to the lure of radicalism because it flatters their vanity; the revolutionaries allow them to think that they can save the world by embracing their cause.  The moneymen who own sporting franchises, record labels and movie studios support them because they bring in the cash.  This has taken place in the current dispute as owners have spoken out in favour of protesting NFL stars, putting profit before principles in a thoroughly contemptible fashion.  Until they are prepared to tell the celebrities where they get off and fire these false Messiahs, it behoves every decent, God-fearing, patriotic believer in a free society to boycott everything they have to offer.  Do not go to the games, the films or the gigs starring these people or produced by the same companies.  Do not buy the products they endorse or others from the same manufacturers.  Show them the contempt that they show you.  Use your buying power to demand the bosses say: “You're fired!”.  Stand by President Trump as he fights this battle on behalf of us all.  Back him in both new and traditional media if moderators and editors will let you.

Péter Esterházy's words that “television takes us nowhere” are very true.  It must be noted that people seldom show respect for broadcasts of the National Anthem, even on occasions when it is broadcast in earnest, as opposed to when it is used in whole or in part in the course of a drama or comedy, such as on flag days, at the close of HM The Queen's Christmas address, or during relays from concerts and sporting events.  The radio and television are merely part of the furniture, and people relate to them as such, they have them on whilst they go about whatever they happen to be doing, so they do not treat a broadcast of the National Anthem as the real thing.  Yet the National Anthem is always the real thing, a priest saying Mass anywhere is always the real thing, prayer is always the real thing; anything that “raises us into the timelessness of eternity” and places before us the eternal verities of being, goodness, truth and beauty is always the real thing because these are the things of God.  The National Anthem speaks to us of virtue, and virtue manifests goodness; always, therefore, stand for it, and thank God for an earthly homeland that reflects, in some poor measure, our heavenly true Patria.           

By Prayer Crusader St Philip Howard 

Thursday 19 October 2017

The liberal media and the Antifa


Whitewashing the Black Bloc

 There have been so many lies told, and truths concealed, that it is difficult to know where to start, but I should begin with the protest against the attack on Confederate monuments. The vast majority of the protesters had no connection with extremists of any kind, and they hate the fact that such protests attract extremist elements.  They are, overwhelmingly, good people, Southern patriots defending their heritage and the ideals for which the Confederacy stood – a traditionary rather than a positivist approach to law, recognition of divine authority, limited government, subsidiarity in the form of States' rights, and a preference for civilisation over modernity and technological progress. There is no connection between such ideals, which are grounded in the British and European heritage of the South, and Nazism; nothing could be further from the Southern spirit than Hitler's dictatorship. As for white supremacism, I must admit that the dishonesty on that point pre-dates the modern media as it began with the lie that the War Between the States was fought over slavery when Lincoln was very clear in saying that he would be happy not to free any of the slaves if the Union could be saved, indeed he guaranteed that slave States loyal to the Union could retain slavery for all time if they pleased. It was fought over States' rights, and it took place at a time when black people living in the North suffered random violence on a regular basis.  Mrs. Beecher Stowe wrote truthfully in describing abolitionists who could not stand the sight of a black, not even a child.  Many black people, including the Pentecostal Protestant rapper Kanye West, are happy to rally behind Southern symbols as emblems of rebellion against irreligious so-called 'progress'. When it comes to antisemitism, Jews and Catholics enjoyed full social and civic equality in the Confederate South, and both were represented in President Davis' cabinet long before a Jew held executive office in New England. I might add that, just as there is no connection between most of the protesters and any of these ideologies, neither is there any link between President Trump and that sort of thing either.  How can a man who has made his Jewish son-in-law one of his key advisers be accused of Nazism or antisemitism?  He has also promoted people of colour within his administration and as ambassadors.


No different than a
Swastika
So if they have little to do with the spirit of the South, why do neo-Nazis and white supremacists attend such protests?  To be frank, people like that really do like a fight, but generally only with their opposite numbers in far left outfits, much as football hooligans enjoy fighting each other, but seldom attack the general public. They know that wherever anybody stands up for anything that is good, and noble, and honest, and true the organised far left will go on the attack, and the leftists have no compunction, none at all, about whom they go for. That brings me to the other side of the media dishonesty in this matter.  The media have a blind spot when it comes to the far left, and only ever report on them when they absolutely cannot be ignored, such as when they conduct Mayday mayhem city riots or attack the venues of G7 meetings.  If the protesters were mainly local Southern patriots defending their heritage with a small fringe of undesirable types, the Antifa crowd were the precise opposite with a fringe of decent local people who saw the neo-Nazis and wanted to  demonstrate against their unSouthern character and a large body of violent thugs armed to the teeth.  As President Trump said, “You had troublemakers. You see them come with the black outfits, and the helmets, and the baseball bats.... you got a lot of bad people”. These people are Antifa. Have you ever heard of them before?  Well done if you have!  The mainstream media never report on their activities.  The first time I have ever heard the word Antifa pass the lips of a BBC reporter was in the reports of the events at Charlottesville, but these people have been active for years.  They are black flag anarchists acting in concert with Trotskyites, 'orthodox' Marxists and other less ideologically distinctive leftists as a popular front of the kind described in communist literature as the form of organisation they should adopt when in a minority so as to maximise their capacity for violent destruction – just think of the Spanish War, and the various militias on the Republican side, that is what you see in Antifa, all of them together, without the complications of the Moscow connection, and they would all be proud of that comparison, proud to be compared with the red horde whose reign of terror came so close to destroying a great Christian nation, proud to be named alongside the people whose atrocities against the Church rivalled those of Nero and Diocletian.  Antifa are the black bloc in the thick of the fighting at the city riots and G7 meetings I mentioned. They, and the various groups from which their attack mobs are assembled, have a vast and grossly under-reported record of rioting, violence and intimidation to their name; they are not simply 'anti-fascist' as their name implies, they call anything they dislike 'fascism' then proceed to attack it.  As Antifa operations are planned by different groups, they choose a wide variety of targets, indeed the Antifa name has been used both by people associated with the murderous terror-gangs of the Jewish Defense League and also by radical anti-Zionists. Sometimes they go for the political meetings of the ordinary political Parties, sometimes for honest journalists whenever they manage to track one down. Sometimes they go for normal, decent people standing up for the things in which they believe.  Sometimes, just sometimes, they do find some real live fascists to attack, but they always fight back, which is a bit less fun for the brave boys and girls in black!  Mainly, however, they go for academics and student societies, partly because there are so many universities around the developed world that some of them can stage an outrage somewhere every week and send footage to their comrades, and partly because action on campus serves to recruit intellectually vulnerable undergrads to their nihilistic project of tearing down everything we know as Christian civilisation.  The attack on intellectual and academic freedom, and on free speech in general, and the fact that Antifa is not a membership organisation, but one to which individuals and groups simply adhere at will, betrays its origins in the international (somewhat ideologically impure) Maoist drive to imitate the Red Guard of the Cultural Revolution. Antifa is a modern manifestation of the spirit of '68, with tactics, techniques and local organisations of various kinds having been handed down and developed from generation to generation, at least from the 1960s.  Antifa is the spirit of nihilism and, therefore, they hate us because in Christ and His Church there is life and the fullness thereof.  Its members appear elsewhere under other labels such as Femen, We Are the Majority, Pro-Choice, Black Liberation Collective, Black Lives Matter etc., etc., but they are easily recognised by their violence and hatred for all that we love and call decent: modesty, morality, faith, hope, charity, patiotism, social and cultural integrity, truth, the family, childhood innocence, unborn life – they have attacked public demonstrations in favour of them all, or else they have attacked lectures, prayer groups and student meetings on these themes.

How bad is the problem? It is very difficult to say because, as President Trump so rightly says the  mainstream media are so dishonest.  At the national level, in America, and here in our country, they have only just admitted the existence of Antifa and they will now ignore it, if at all possible, in the hope that the general public forgets all about it.  It was only after the events at Charlottesville that the Gray Lady deigned to report on the $100,000s worth of damage Antifa did in a Molotov cocktail raid on UC Berkeley six months beforehand (and they call it news!).  The attempt to take down the statue of General Lee (who, incidentally, emancipated his own family slaves) in Charlottesville is being undertaken through legal means; but elsewhere, during the Antifa raid on Duke University, for example, monuments have been taken down or blown up by the masked terrorist gangs. Straight after Charlottesville they rioted in Phoenix, Arizona, Boston, Berkeley again and Portland, OR.  On our side of the ocean there have been fewer bombs and fires, but a lot of broken windows, furniture and equipment of various kinds; the Oxford and Cambridge Unions have been targetted, as has the LSE in another throwback to the '60s, plus a whole range of other, less well known institutions that have failed, or whose student societies have failed, to comply with Antifa's demand that certain speakers should always be denied a platform, and certain opinions never be heard.  There have also been clashes with real fascists up and down the country.  Nationalists, fascists, 'identarians' and similar sorts of racist activist have taken to holding closed door meetings in hotels and conference centres across the country under the name London, South-West, Yorkshire etc. Forum.  We all know what we think about such people, and it is not the business of CUT to defend them; but, as President Trump noted with respect to the Charlottesville protesters, they are acting in an entirely lawful manner.  Anything offensive that they might have to say is said only to people who will not take offence as they are only talking to each other.  Antifa customarily gathers a mainly masked mob (I imagine they follow the fascists on Facebook to find out where to go!) outside the venue, drawing in any decent, honest anti-fascists they can lure, smash all the windows, throw in smoke bombs, thunderflashes or fireworks, depending on what they happen to have to hand, then set on the fascists when they come out, fight until the police turn up, then run away, presumably leaving the fascists liable for the glaziers' bill.  How much of this have you heard before?  If you read a local newspaper, you might well have read a report or two, but they never seem to make it onto the BBC or into even the Daily Mirror, sister paper of so many local titles, or the Daily Mail which used to share ownership of them with Trinity Mirror. 


So why would journalists want to sit on these stories, they are really great news stories, what could be more newsworthy than domestic terrorists using violence to further their agenda, and blackmailing people to keep their enemies out of sight and earshot, and 'trolling' people on the internet with threats to life and limb?  Just look at who these silent journalists are, and who their friends are. Curious how shy some of them are when it comes to publishing details about themselves, isn't it?  Next time the BBC goes on strike just take a good look at the photos, or look at some old pictures of last time. You will see official placards from whichever union organised the strike, but also a number of others representing the caucuses of political Parties organised within the union – the same unions, with the same Party groupings, also operate in other media outlets, as do print unions unrepresented at the BBC – look at them, Socialist Labour Party, TUSC (many of them used to be in Militant), Socialist Workers Party, Workers Revolutionary Party all had placards on show a few years back.  These impartial reporters, from our politically neutral State broadcaster, these members of its editorial, production and technical staff are the comrades in arms of the low life scum on whose activities they so frequently fail to report, or whom they misrepresent as fine, upstanding citizens.  This is the massive problem – who knows the scale of it – that nobody ever cares to mention of hard left, far left, alt-left, and any other kind of left anybody cares to mention, infiltrating the media in Britain, America and right across Europe. In the past, of course, there was the question of loyalty to a foreign power; now those people have no loyalty at all, except perhaps to each other.  As for the American media, well who knows anything at all about those people?  Why would a writer for the New Yorker complain about the police standing calmly by as a planned protest with a permit marched in an orderly and peaceable fashion, and talk about “black people angry at the murder of teenagers” being “met with tanks and riot gear” when she must know that known militants in the Black Panther tradition from the Black Liberation Collective have been active in promoting the Black Lives Matter campaign?  We can guess, sure we can guess, and we can look to the past: to the fine example of Ed Murrow, Edgar Snow or John Reed, communist stooges and fellow-travellers.  Frankly, until Congress gets around to empanelling an UnAmerican Activities Committee to investigate the media, guessing is all anyone can do. Until then, the best anyone can do, either side of 'the Pond', is to stand with President Trump in calling out both the dishonest media and the alt-left domestic terrorists; he speaks for all of us, and deserves our support in this. Call on Amber Rudd to proscribe Antifa as an organisation that uses and advocates the use of violence to achieve political ends.  Fly the flag – the Stars and Bars, or the Battle Flag of the Southern Cross.  Always remember that the fight for truth is ultimately a fight for Christ, Who is the very Truth eternal and incarnate.  The fight for civilisation, culture, history and tradition is the fight for the ideal of a Christian society formed after the mind of our Lord.  The fight against the atheistic materialism at the heart of the rogues gallery that goes to make up Antifa is a fight for our humanity made in the image of God and the fullness of life lived in and through His Son.  This is the fight that matters – Prayer Crusaders, Comrades, to arms!

By Prayer Crusader St Philip Howard



The Sword of General Lee


Forth from its scabbard, pure and bright,
  Flashed the sword of Lee!
Far in the front of the deadly fight,
High o'er the brave in the cause of Right
Its stainless sheen, like a beacon light,
  Led us to Victory!

Out of its scabbard, where, full long,
  It slumbered peacefully,
Roused from its rest by the battle's song,
Shielding the feeble, smiting the strong,
Guarding the right, avenging the wrong,
  Gleamed the sword of Lee!

Forth from its scabbard, high in the air
  Beneath Virginia's sky--
And they who saw it gleaming there,
And knew who bore it, knelt to swear
That where that sword led they would dare
  To follow--and to die!

Out of its scabbard! Never hand
  Waved sword from stain as free,
Nor purer sword led braver band,
Nor braver bled for a brighter land,
Nor brighter land had a cause so grand,
  Nor cause a chief like Lee!
Forth from its scabbard! How we prayed
  That sword might victor be;
And when our triumph was delayed,
And many a heart grew sore afraid,
We still hoped on while gleamed the blade
  Of noble Robert Lee!

Forth from its scabbard all in vain
  Bright flashed the sword of Lee;
'Tis shrouded now in its sheath again,
It sleeps the sleep of our noble slain,
Defeated, yet without stain,
  Proudly and peacefully!

       - Fr Joseph Abram Ryan