Youth Was Made not for Pleasure but for Heroism

In the small town of Roscrea, with its old Medieval Castle and venerable 19th century Cistercian Abbey, a special event took place. Irish Society for a Christian Civilisation held its second Call to Chivalry camp. Young men from Ireland, England, Scotland, France and the United States gathered to learn more about the great gift of their Catholic Faith and the necessity of defending and upholding Christian principles and the honour of God and his Holy Mother in today’s turbulent world. Volunteers came from Scotland, Italy, Portugal and USA to help organise the camp and to give meetings.

The camp was held from 29th June to 5th July, and took place in the guest house and grounds of Mount St. Joseph’s Abbey. The camp began with a solemn Benediction. The camp was honoured to have the presence of Father Gabriel Burke as chaplain during the six days where Mass was offered daily. Father Burke also provided the sacrament of Confession, as well as, enrolling some of the participants in the Scapular of Our Lady of Mount
Carmel.

During the course of the camp a number of talks were given on subjects ranging from Religious to Cultural and historical topics. Father Burke spoke on the importance of taking our Confirmation seriously. He showed in a vivid and convincing way that we are called to be true soldiers of Christ in this great sacrament, thus helping to reinforce the theme of the camp: “A Call to Chivalry”. He stressed the necessity of having a regular prayer life with frequent spiritual reading along with frequent reception of the sacraments.

Mr. Neil McKay from Scotland gave a lecture on the history of France leading up to the apparitions of Our Lady at Lourdes. He tied this in with the Liberalism permeating France at the time of Our Lady’s apparitions. Mr. McKay proved in an enlightening way that Lourdes was and still is an answer to the errors of those times, as well as, our own.

Mr. Julio Loredo, from Italy, gave several meetings on the trajectory of History from the point of view of Christian civilisation. He explained in a brilliant manner the passage of history from Medieval Christendom to the modern world of today, and how modern times are far removed from reflecting God’s glory in all things. He demonstrated that everything on this earth should give glory to God – even in something as common and seemingly insignificant as a pair of shoes one should find a reflection of God.

Other meetings were given by Mr. Byron Whitcraft from the United States. These included a presentation showing how the roots of the modern moral crisis are to be found in the Renaissance. He also gave a talk on the importance of symbolism. And to illustrate this he used a video presentation to compare the Lion to the Hyena. While the Lion can symbolise honour, courage, and nobility, the Hyena on the other hand can many times symbolise the opposite. Many lessons can be learned from the symbolism of these two animals. He organised a skit called “The Four Chairs”, to illustrate not only the change in furniture design from the Middle Ages to today, but also the accompanying change in mentality.

A talk was given by Mr. Kenneth Murphy on the importance of understanding true freedom. To illustrate this topic he used facts taken from the life of Saint Peter Armengol, who went from a life of sin to a life of great sanctity. And in his conversion he finally found true freedom.  He presented this great saint as a model of confidence and true freedom.

The camp this year had two cultural excursions. The first was a tour of Kilkenny city, where the participants visited Rothe House, and later, Kilkenny Castle. The second excursion was to the historic town of Adare. There the camp members saw the ruins of the town’s Norman Castle and the ancient medieval church of the Holy Trinity.

Among the highlights of the camp were a hike in the Slieve Bloom mountains, and a tour of Mount St. Joseph’s abbey itself.

In addition to meetings and outings the camp was filled with a number of sports and games. These included outdoor, as well as, indoor games. The outdoor games were very popular with the energetic young men. Such games as Australian Dodge Ball, Steal the Bacon, Shield Ball and French Football were new to many of the young and were very popular.

Indoor games were also welcome, especially in the evenings.

On the last day of the camp we had our customary Medieval Games, with their flavour of pageantry, itself symbolic of the age of Chivalry, so profoundly imbued with Christian principles.  For these games the young men wore large colourful scapulars on which were painted heraldic symbols. After the games Holy Mass was celebrated, followed by a Medieval Banquet, to which the families of the participants were invited, and during which we were entertained with music played by some of the young men. Amidst lively conversation a slide show of the camp was shown. At the end of the banquet a cake in the shape of a Castle was served. Each participant was presented with a souvenir of the camp.

The evening finished with a procession from the guest house to the college chapel, carrying a pilgrim statue of Our Lady of Fatima, preceded by torches and flags. During the procession the Holy Rosary was recited. The camp officially ended as it had begun, with a solemn Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

For all the participants the six days were an enrichment of the treasures of the Catholic Faith, and a reinvigoration of the ideal of defending the Faith cost what it may. In these reflections a quote by the famous French author, Paul Claudel, comes to mind: “Youth was made not for pleasure but for heroism.”

Ireland needs Fatima Campaign Update

Ireland Needs Fatima Campaign

SUMMARY OF ITEMS DISTRIBUTED:

Fatima Flyers	1,220,000
Rosary Flyers	467,000
Fatima: Past or Future?	18,000
Pictures of Our Lady	17,900
Way of the Cross	5,000
Rosary Booklets/Book	31,600
Rosaries	28,700
Book of Confidence	15,000
The Angels	10,000
Calendars	27,700

Campaign on the Treaty of Lisbon

Having found many objectionable aspects to the Treaty of Lisbon, from the perspective of Catholic moral and social teaching, Irish Society for Christian Civilisation published the study: “9 reasons why a conscientious Catholic citizen should reject the Treaty of Lisbon.” Thousands of copies of this booklet (and a flyer summarising it) were distributed in the weeks approaching the referendum.

The study based itself on the insistence of the Holy Father that in the construction of Europe there are three areas in which the Church defends “non-negotiable principles”. Those areas are:

– the protection of life at every stage…

– the recognition and promotion of the natural structure of the family…

– and the protection of the right of parents to educate their children.

The violation of these principles raises a grave question of conscience for Catholic voters. Both Pope Benedict XVI and his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, had, on numerous occasions, denounced the excessively secular direction which the European Union is taking.

And it seems that this secular direction was the Achilles heel of the Treaty, as far as the Irish referendum was concerned. The abandonment of our Christian roots and the failure to acknowledge God in the EU Constitution (of which the Lisbon Treaty was a rehash) was neither the way to attract the support of the millions of Christians in Ireland (and hundreds of millions in Europe), nor the way to attract God’s blessing on the European project.

There were many reasons why people voted “no”, including economics, taxation, democracy, sovereignty, neutrality, confusion and uncertainty. However, there can be no doubt that the fear of our legislation on social and moral issues being dictated by the EU played a major role in the outcome of the referendum. The inclusion of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights as a legally binding part of the Treaty gave voters every reason to expect the worst in the case of the Lisbon Treaty being passed.

Irish Society for Christian Civilisation is happy to have taken a stand in defence of the “non-negotiable principles” given by the Holy Father. Now we must hope, pray and act so that Ireland and all Europe be spared from any further treaty/constitution that denies God and our Christian roots, and that imposes a liberal social agenda through the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.

If you would like a copy of our booklet or flyer, please contact us by clicking here.

Are Today’s Democracies Anti-democratic?

Excerpts from an article by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
I choose to treat of only one (point about democracy) today. The question is how can democracy defend itself against its adversaries and still be consistent with its own principles?

*****

I hear and read that in a true democracy – that is, one with popular sovereignty and its inseparable individual liberties, mainly of holding various opinions – there must be granted to each individual the right to disagree with certain rules of action. But this disagreement would not be licit regarding a triple rule, held as fundamental for the basic liberties of man, that is: freedom of conscience, freedom of thought, and freedom of religion.

It seems to me that as a consequence of this way of understanding democracy the people are not sovereign, because the sovereign power is essentially supreme. And, if somebody has the right to tell the sovereign people that there is a “fundamental rule” into which the people cannot introduce any modification, the people cease to be truly sovereign. Rather, this somebody becomes sovereign.

Thus, such an untouchable “rule” violates from the outset the untouchability of popular sovereignty, in other words, what the secularist democracy – and, in its way, the  democracy of Christian inspiration – holds to be essential.

*****

Incidentally, I do not understand how it is possible to set up as an untouchable taboo – and, therefore, one unable to be disputed and rejected – the triple freedom of conscience, thought, and religion, without falling into an insoluble contradiction from yet another point of view. For, the thesis that this triple freedom is the “fundamental rule” of democracy is an opinion. Now, if all opinions may be disputed and rejected, this must also be the case for the “rule” of the triple freedom. And so we reach the conclusion that the untouchability of the triple rule (instead of speaking about rules why not frankly speak about dogmas, since the latter is an untouchable teaching according to which all of men’s thoughts must be ruled?) not only denies popular sovereignty, as we saw above, but also freedom of opinion, by which it deflates democracy itself.

I well understand that in favour of his democratic in congruity someone can allege the necessity of democracy defending itself against its adversaries. But this defence must consist either: in free discussion, courteous and clear, and in efficient persuasion, in such a manner as to keep the sovereign people faithful to the democratic principles; or it will be done by repression of those who do not agree. In this case, the defence of democracy will be anti-democratic. In the latter hypothesis, democracy would commit suicide in the very act of defending itself. This is so because if there is a law that prohibits the people from being any other thing than favourable to the triple “rule,” then democracy does not  aintain
itself anymore by the sovereign discernment and by the sovereign will of the sovereign people, but by the will and force of a few.

To tell people that they are free to go wherever they want, as long as it is within this triple “rule,” reminds me of something that used to be said as a joke in the past. I refer to the story of the father, playing the liberal, who said: “My daughter may marry anyone she pleases, as long as she chooses Joseph.”

In a democracy, the people are king. When the king is fickle, what is the solution? Is it to establish a super-king above him? Who will control this superking? A yet more super-king? If the solution consists in a law that controls popular sovereignty, I repeat that, in certain cases, democracy could become defenceless to the point of suicide. But it has one way to defend itself without committing suicide.

And, frankly, I see no other way. It must baptise itself. I say “baptise,” because we must remember that everything I have been saying refers specifically to secular democracy.

A democracy of genuine Christian inspiration recognises, for the people, the right of free legislation, as long as it does not transgress the teachings and precepts emanating from God, true Sovereign, King and Father of all men, infinitely Wise and Good. When such precepts are followed, nothing ends in ruin.

The authority of God is the only one that can – in the rigour of Catholic doctrine – circumscribe the sovereignty of temporal power, whatever be its form, whether monarchical, aristocratic, or democratic. Where this is not the case, the people are really susceptible to the fickleness of the sovereign, whether it be a king, an aristocracy, or the common people.

To put God aside and to confine sovereignty by “rules” established by mere men, however intelligent, cultured, and experienced they may be, even though these “rules” formally coincide with the law of God, would be, in the final analysis, to transfer sovereignty to these men…

And who is not fickle, except for God, most excellent and great?

Forgotten Truths

Love is not Tolerance

By Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
Christian love bears evil, but it does not tolerate it. It does penance for sins of others, but it is not broadminded about sin.  The cry for tolerance never induces it to quench its hatred of the evil philosophies that have entered into contest with the Truth. It forgives the sinner, and it hates the sin; it is unmerciful to the error in his mind. The sinner it will always take back into the bosom of the Mystical Body; but his lie will never be taken into the treasury of His Wisdom.

Real love involves real hatred: whoever has lost the power of moral indignation and the urge to drive the buyers and sellers from the temples has lost a living, fervent love of Truth.

Charity, then, is not a mild philosophy of “live and let live”; it is not a species of sloppy sentiment. Charity is the infusion of the Spirit of God, which makes us love the beautiful and hate the morally ugly.

Ambiences, Customs & Civilisations

True Sanctity Lies in Strength of Soul and Not in Sentimental Softness

By Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
The Church teaches that true and complete sanctity is the heroism of virtue. The honour of the altars is not granted to weak, hypersensitive souls that flee from profound thoughts, from acute suffering, from the fight, in short, from the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Mindful of the words of Her Divine Founder, “the kingdom of heaven belongs to the violent,” the Church canonises only those who, in life, authentically fought the good fight, those who plucked out their own eye or cut off their own foot when it caused scandal, and sacrificed everything to follow only Our Lord Jesus Christ. In reality, sanctification entails the greatest heroism, for it presupposes not only the firm and serious resolution to sacrifice life itself if need be to remain faithful to Jesus Christ, but even to live a prolonged existence on earth if God so desires, constantly renouncing everything most dear in order to adhere only to the divine will.

A certain iconography, unfortunately much in use, presents the saints quite differently: they appear soft, sentimental, with neither personality nor strength of character,incapable of serious, solid and  coherent ideas; they seem to be souls guided only by their emotions and, therefore, totally unsuited for the great fights that always accompany earthly life.

The figure of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus was especially deformed by bad iconography. Roses, smiles, inconsistent sentimentality, a soft life free of cares,a person with bones of rock candy and blood of honey – this is the idea they would like us to have of that great, that incomparable saint.

How all this differs from her true spirit – vast and profound like the firmament, shining and burning like the sun, yet so humble and so filial – which one finds upon reading her autobiography, The Story of a Soul. Our two pictures represent, so to speak, two different and even opposite “Thérèses.”

In the first, there is nothing heroic; this is the insignificant, superficial and perfumed Thérèse imagined by romantic and sentimental iconography. The second is the authentic Thérèse, photographed on June 7, 1897, shortly before her death on September 30 of the same year.

Her countenance is marked by the deep peace earned by great and irrevocable renunciations. Her features have a definition, a strength and a harmony possessed only by souls with an iron logic. Her gaze bespeaks tremendous sufferings in the deepest recesses of the soul yet, at the same time, reveals the fire and courage of a heroic soul, determined to advance cost what it may.

Contemplating this physiognomy, strong and  profound as only the grace of God can make a human soul, one thinks of another Face: that of the Holy Shroud of Turin, which no man could have imagined and perhaps none dare describe. Between the Face of Our Dead Lord, which has a peace, a strength, a profundity and a sorrow that human words cannot express, and the face of Saint Thérèse, there is an imponderable yet very real similarity. And why should it be thought surprising that the Holy Face impressed something of Itself on the face and the soul of one who in  religious lifer called herself Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face?

(Catolicismo, no. 114, June 1960 / Crusade for a Christian Civilization, March – April 2001)

Our Readers Write

• Congratulations and thank you for the wonderful leaflets on the Rosary that you are sending out in the post. They are beautiful and I am delighted to see them. I will keep this project in my prayers.
  SC, Co. Kerry
• Your booklet on the Rosary has solid meditation material and an inviting way of leading us Priests and Christians on the path to holiness to which we are called.
  Fr. BL, Tanzania
• We do pray that Irish Society for Christian Civilisation may soar higher and higher towards heaven on the luminous wings of spreading devotion to Our Lady… requesting your prayers and thanking you…
  Sr. R, India
• Your booklet on the Lisbon Treaty is extremely informative. Thank you.
  MD, Co. Limerick
• Congratulations on your campaign on the Lisbon Treaty. Your booklet “9 reasons why a conscientious Catholic citizen should reject the Treaty of Lisbon” was the best information available on the whole Lisbon debate.
  EH, Co. Dublin
• This book on the Rosary is the best that I have seen. The pictures are beautiful, and the meditations are perfect for the First Saturdays devotions and for keeping focussed on the prayers of the Rosary. I recommend it to everyone.
  RH, Co. Cavan
• Mass, Rosary, talks and games every day: this Summer Camp opened my mind about many subjects of Christian civilisation. The very interesting talks will be an efficient weapon for me to fight the vices of our modern society caused by the loss of principles.
  FB, France

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