BXVI - Books and the Church

And for all you fellow bibliophiles, the Holy Father says in no uncertain terms, the Church of Rome is inextricably tied together with the importance of books. Who would have thought it?

What the Pope Really Said

Just in case you only heard - literally - the de-generate side of the story, here is what Benedict XVI really said in Spain.

Worldly People - Knox

(T)HE CHRISTIAN RELIGION ALWAYS HAS one enemy, and always it is the same enemy, the world ... What do we mean when we talk about "worldly" people? It isn't a very easy thing to explain or to define. But, roughly speaking, I think you can say worldly people are the people who either don't believe in a future life, or don't bother about a future life, and want to make this world as comfortable a place as possible for as many people as possible, always including themselves ... And of course all that was what Pontius Pilate stood for. He didn't care a bit about whether our Lord was the Son of God or not, about whether he broke the Sabbath or not, about whether he kept the law of Moses or not. He only wanted to keep the Jews reasonably contented, reasonably quiet; he didn't want crowds of people going round shouting out slogans like "Hosanna to the Son of David," or "Crucify him" - that kind of thing was bad for public safety, so it had got to be stopped. It wasn't Judas, you see, it wasn't Caiaphas, that crucified our Lord. If they had done it, there was an intelligible motive for doing it. Caiaphas and those others had at least the excuse of wounded professional pride, for wanting to put our Lord to death. Judas had a much more practical excuse - thirty pieces of silver. But Pilate didn't dislike our Lord at all; he was rather impressed by him, he was certainly convinced of his innocence. And yet it was Pilate who crucified him. It was the world of worldly people, with its dislike of a scene, its dislike of a fuss, its doctrine of "Live and let live" that put Jesus Christ to death.

- Ronald A. Knox

Clueless

He just doesn't get it, does he? If he spent one-half his time trying to reach the American public with the same fervor, he might just make some friends.

Meanwhile, he and most of the MSM ignores this. Sigh.

Titian

The Tribute Money (1515) - Titian

Hubris vs. Catholic Truth

How do you compare these personages? Easy - with great similarity and motive. The man on the left, Henry VIII, dissolved the monasteries of England to get lead for his cannon balls from their roofs and money and lands for his nouveau rich gentry flunkies. The man on the right - here receiving an honorary law degree from the University of Notre Dame - wants to dissolve the influence in terms of faith and morals of the Catholic Church with the help of such "royal" personages as the president of Notre Dame, Fr. John Jenkins.

Simple equations in luciferian logic and inference. We have much to learn from the so-called English "reformation".

Pax Christi in regno Christi - Knox

CHRISTENDOM HAS BEFORE NOW taken up arms in its own defence ... Christian princes, before now, have tried to spread the faith at the point of the sword, always, or nearly always, with disastrous results for religion. But the substantial victories of the Church have lain, always, in the sphere of the human conscience. Christ has reigned, not in the councils of nations, but in men's hearts. If every country in the world professed the Catholic religion, set up religious emblems in its market places and voted special honours, special privileges, special revenues to the clergy -- that would not be the reign of Christ on earth. It would not be the reign of Christ on earth if the homage which men paid to religion was merely external, merely political; if they treated the emblems of Christianity merely as an ancestral tradition they were proud of; and a convenient rallying-point for civic sentiment, no more. Christ will reign in the world only where, only in so far as, he rules in human hearts.

- Ronald A. Knox