Racism is completely incompatible with Catholicism. Yet, it’s existence can be found all throughout the history of the Catholic Church. Within the last couple of years, white supremacists within the Church have been causing some problems. I was telling my friend over at the website https://introiboadaltaredei2.blogspot.com/2020/ about how I was going to write an article on the subject. He informed me that he was already working on one and he graciously granted me permission to publish it.
Below is Introibo’s excellent article…
It was the First Saturday Mass in January at the Ave Maria Chapel, twenty-four years ago. Father DePauw, my spiritual father who led me to the One True Church, would always have the first pews reserved for the children so he could quiz them on their monthly catechism lessons. It was also the Feast of the Epiphany. There was a beautiful and large manger outside the Chapel. Inside all could see an equally beautiful (yet decidedly smaller) one, on the Epistle side of the altar, just outside the Sanctuary. After his quiz, Father would deliver an approximately 10 minute sermon aimed at teaching the kids.
From the pulpit Father pointed to the indoor manger. “Do you see the Three Wise Men? They were blessed to be among the very first to see the Infant Savior. I want you to notice that one of the three has decidedly black skin, and the others have white skin. In life, you will meet some people with white skin who will tell you to hate people with black skin. You will also meet people with black skin who will tell you to hate people with white skin. These people who hate other people with different skin color would like everyone to live apart according to their color, and they also want you to believe that one skin color is better than others. This is stupid and not Catholic. Jesus Christ did not die on Good Friday for the black race, the white race, or the yellow race. He only died for one race–the human race to which all skin colors belong.” (Written from my memory as best I remember. Father used that same sermon for the children virtually every First Saturday in January).
There is a disturbing trend among Millennials to take extreme positions. As a Generation Xer, I believe it is the effect of growing up in a world where all remaining vestiges of Catholicism were eliminated in the Great Apostasy by the Vatican II sect. If you look at the supporters of Communist Senator Bernie Sanders, there are overwhelming numbers of 23-38 year olds. There is a tendency among this generation to take extreme right-wing positions as well, such as Fascism/Neo-Nazism. Add to the mix the fact that four in ten millennials now say they are religiously unaffiliated, according to the Pew Research Center; therefore large numbers of young people are left without any thought of God and remain feeling empty. The extreme positions give the definitive answers regarding right and wrong/good and bad that the Church used to give before Vatican II created a new sect falsely claiming the title “Roman Catholic Church.” (See https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/).
As a result of these sad circumstances, a new racism is being touted among some young people calling themselves “Traditionalist.” Many of them are attracted to the fact that sedevacantism “sounds extreme” and are not really searching for the Truth. Their knowledge of the Faith is very superficial. Adding fuel to the fire, the media and political climate cause distrust among races. The liberals are making non-whites “victims” and want job quotas (think Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ), while conservatives are claiming racial superiority in the form of “White Nationalism.” Both are causing a new and real hatred based on skin color. Some of these racists also think they can be Traditionalists simultaneously without contradiction in their beliefs. This post will explore Church teaching on racism, and the correct type of nationalism we need today.
Essential Unity of Humanity
In his first encyclical, Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum (1914), Pope Benedict XV declares that the relations between people should be one of brothers and sisters, i.e., of those who are one in nature because they are of the same family created by God. Discussing the ravages of the First World War (1914-1918), His Holiness writes, “Who would imagine as we see them thus filled with hatred of one another, that they are all of one common stock, all of the same nature, all members of the same human family?” (para. #3; Emphasis mine).
In Mortalium Animos (1928), Pope Pius XI teaches, “… it is easily understood, and the more so because none now dispute the unity of the human race, why many desire that the various nations, inspired by this universal kinship, should daily be more closely united one to another.” (para. #1; Emphasis mine). The same holy pontiff ordered the Sacred Congregation for Seminaries and Universities to compose a letter refuting and condemning racism and Nazi “Aryan race” ideology in order to prevent it from infecting Catholic educational institutions. The result was a privately circulated document entitled Instruction Concerning Racism, Its Doctrinal Errors and the Measures to be Employed Against Their Spread (hereinafter “Instruction”). The Instruction was dated April 13, 1938 and a complete English translation was made by canonist Bouscaren in the Canon Law Digest-Supplement 1941 (pgs. 165-167). The Congregation’s Instruction condemns no less than eight (8) propositions as being both “pernicious” and “absurd:”
I. The human races, by their natural and immutable characters, are so different from each other that, the humblest of them is further from the highest race than of the highest animal species.
II. We must by all means, preserve and cultivate strong race and purity of blood, so that all which leads to this result is therefore honest and permitted.
III. It is blood, seat of the characteristics of the race, that all the intellectual and moral qualities of man derive as their main source.
IV. The basic purpose of education is to develop the characters of the race and inflame the minds of a burning love of their own race as the supreme good.
V. Religion is subject to the law of race and must be adapted to it.
VI. The first source and the supreme rule of law and order is racial instinct.
VII. There exists only the Cosmos or living universe; all things, including humans, are only various forms growing over the ages of universal life.
VIII. Each man exists only by the State and for the State. All that he rightly possesses derives exclusively from a concession to the State.
It shouldn’t be too hard to understand that racism is inexorably linked to the damnable doctrine of Social Darwinism. It is taken from the false teaching of Charles Darwin (d. 1882) regarding evolution. The term “evolution” is used to refer to the general theory that all life on earth has evolved from non-living matter and progressed to more complex forms with time; humans are not special in any way–both body and soul (or “consciousness”)– comes from brute matter. This stands condemned by the Church.
As the late leading evolutionist George Gaylord Simpson observed:
“In the world of Darwin, man has no special status other than his definition as a distinct species of animal. He is in the fullest sense a part of nature and not apart from it. He is akin, not figuratively, but literally, to every living thing, be it an amoeba, a tapeworm, a seaweed, an oak tree, or a monkey—even though the degrees of relationship are different and we may feel less empathy for forty-second cousins like the tapeworm than for, comparatively speaking, brothers like the monkeys….” (See George Gaylord Simpson, “The World into Which Darwin Led Us,” Science, Vol. 131 (1960), p. 970).
As a consequence of this error, when Darwinism is applied to society (“Social” aspect), you will get one of two malevolent results:
(a) All higher forms of life are to be considered equal. Hence, there was a case here in New York, where a lawyer argued to give legal rights (and constitutional protections) to chimpanzees.
(See https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/do-apes-deserve-personhood-rights-lawyer-heads-n-y-supreme-n731431).
While we must be good stewards of all God has given us, and not abuse the animals God gave to Earth, it is insanity to assert (as some “animal rights activists” have done) that eating meat is “murder.” According to the “People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals” (PETA), “We are taught the Golden Rule as young children, and all major religions teach principles of nonviolence and kindness. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Ethical treatment—the Golden Rule—must be extended to all living beings: reptiles, mammals, fish, insects, birds, amphibians, and crustaceans.” To include animals in the Golden Rule, which was given to humans by Christ, is blasphemous.(See https://www.peta.org/features/what-peta-really-stands-for/).
(b) As a consequence of the Darwinian principle of the “survival of the fittest,” the superior have the right to dominate the inferior. Humans are animals and each race is different, insofar as it is alleged that certain races are inherently superior to others (Hitler’s “Master Race”). According to the National Socialist Movement’s (Neo-Nazi) website:
National Socialism is a worldview that is based upon the application of Natural Law to the individual, the family, the economy, and the nation. Natural Law is the organic expression of Truth found within all of nature. The nation within National Socialism is made up of a people who share the same language, heritage, culture, customs, and blood. (This is a perverted definition of “Natural Law” and there is no mention of God or religion; Emphasis mine) We seek to preserve and advance our culture, traditions, and our genetic inheritance based upon the principles of love and duty for our Faith, Family, and Folk. This can be summed up in the famous Fourteen Words “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children.”( See https://www.nsm88.org/; Emphasis mine)
You also can’t get more blunt than “King Shamir Shabazz” the leader of the New Black Panther Party’s Philadelphia chapter, who said in a National Geographic documentary (January 2009), “I hate white people. All of them.” The Panthers believe that the “superior race” is “Afro-centric.”
True Nationalism and National Unity Can Only Be Built Upon The One True Church
As Pope Pius XI taught in his 1937 encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge, “Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community – however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things – whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds.” (para. #8).
The Teachings of the Popes
1. In the absence of a restraining principle by which individual passions are controlled, moral unity of a nation becomes impossible.
Pope Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, para. # 21: Nor can it be said that these atrocities are a transitory phenomenon, the usual accompaniment of all great revolutions, the isolated excesses common to every war. No, they are the natural fruit of a system which lacks all inner restraint. Some restraint is necessary for man considered either as an individual or in society. Even the barbaric peoples had this inner check in the natural law written by God in the heart of every man. And where this natural law was held in higher esteem, ancient nations rose to a grandeur that still fascinates – more than it should – certain superficial students of human history. But tear the very idea of God from the hearts of men, and they are necessarily urged by their passions to the most atrocious barbarity. (Emphasis mine)
2. People can choose the form of government they want, as long as it is not opposed to the Church and Her teachings.
Pope St. Pius X: Notre Charge Apostolique, In the Encyclical on political government which We have already quoted, they could have read this: ‘Justice being preserved, it is not forbidden to the people to choose for themselves the form of government which best corresponds with their character or with the institutions and customs handed down by their forefathers.’ (Emphasis mine)
3. The State has an obligation to be a Catholic State, and the Church will bring blessings upon the people.
Pope Leo XIII: Immortale Dei: As a consequence, the State, constituted as it is, is clearly bound to act up to the manifold and weighty duties linking it to God, by the public profession of religion…Now, it cannot be difficult to find out which is the true religion, if only it be sought with an earnest and unbiased mind; for proofs are abundant and striking. We have, for example, the fulfillment of prophecies, miracles in great numbers, the rapid spread of the faith in the midst of enemies and in face of overwhelming obstacles, the witness of the martyrs, and the like. From all these it is evident that the only true religion is the one established by Jesus Christ Himself, and which He committed to His Church to protect and to propagate…the abundant benefits with which the Christian religion, of its very nature, endows even the mortal life of man are acquired for the community and civil society. And this to such an extent that it may be said in sober truth: “The condition of the commonwealth depends on the religion with which God is worshiped; and between one and the other there exists an intimate and abiding connection.” (para. #6, 7, 19; Emphasis mine).
4. Errors Concerning The One True Church and the State
Pope Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors, CONDEMNED PROPOSITIONS:
27. The sacred ministers of the Church and the Roman pontiff are to be absolutely excluded from every charge and dominion over temporal affairs.
40. The teaching of the Catholic Church is hostile to the well- being and interests of society.
42. In the case of conflicting laws enacted by the two powers, the civil law prevails.
48. Catholics may approve of the system of educating youth unconnected with Catholic faith and the power of the Church, and which regards the knowledge of merely natural things, and only, or at least primarily, the ends of earthly social life.
55. The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church.
Conclusion
Father DePauw’s Chapel is approximately 30% non-white, and always was that way. It showed me the true “universal” (i.e., “Catholic”) Nature of the Church. I remember one Sunday sitting between an Hispanic man and a Haitian woman. Neither spoke English other than a few simple phrases. Yet here we were at the same Mass. I looked over and saw one hand Missal was in French and English and the other in Spanish and English. Christ came to all three of us in Holy Communion that day regardless of race, language, or other worldly consideration.
God created one race, the human race. While we are composed of different skin colors, it should neither unite us like the Nazis or divide us like so-called “separatists.” Let the One True Church unite us all in He Who is Truth Itself. “There is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28).
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