Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamay, an Indian anchor-baby and practicing Hindu, does not want his prospective constituents to know about his positions on the 2020 ‘pandemic’:


https://x.com/americanreform_/status/1924133636699250946?s=46

Thesis
To deny the perfect and exclusive identification of the Church of Christ with the Catholic Church, as taught in Lumen Gentium no. 8, and confirmed in its official doctrinal interpretation (slide below), is heretical. The unity of the Church—a dogma—prevents a real distinction being made between the Catholic Church and the Church of Christ, which, to the contrary, must have strict identity.

Catholic Doctrine
The Creed: Unam sanctum catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam.

Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis (no. 13): If we would define and describe this true Church of Jesus Christ—which is [est] the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church—we shall find nothing more noble, more sublime, or more divine than the expression ‘the Mystical Body of Christ—an expression which springs from and is, as it were, the fair flowering of the repeated teaching of the Sacred Scriptures and the Holy Fathers.

Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis (no. 27): Some say they are not bound by the doctrine, explained in Our Encyclical Letter [Mystici Corporis] of a few years ago, and based on the Sources of Revelation, which teaches that the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing.

Pope Pius IX, Jam vos Omnes (para. 3): [N]o one of these societies [heretical or schismatic cults] nor all of them together in any way constitute or are that one Catholic Church which Our Lord founded and established and which He willed to create. Nor is it possible, either, to say that these societies are either a member or part of this same Church, since they are visibly separated from Catholic Unity.

Pope Pius IX, Pastor Aeternus (no. 3): The Church of Christ is one flock under one Supreme Pastor through the preservation of unity both of communion and of profession of the same faith with the Roman Pontiff. This is the teaching of Catholic truth, from which no one can deviate without loss of faith and of salvation.

Novel, ‘Communio’ Ecclesiological Principle
Paul VI, Lumen Gentium (no. 8): This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in [subsistit in] the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and truth are found outside its visible structure.

Anyone else get a good chuckle out of those absurd, beyond the pale theories e.g opposing evolutionism, heliocentrism and affirming that race is a real category with significance and temporal value?

Or, perhaps, is it just the ethnic Jew, Trent Horn[stein], who is trying to pathologize pre-1960s Catholic views while simultaneously positioning himself as an opponent to liberalism.

What could possibly motivate someone to stigmatize views safely within orthodoxy, using a standard other than Catholic doctrine to gatekeep?

From around the 30min mark in his recent video, a conservation with another ethnic Jew (perhaps a coincidence?), Redeemed Zoomer.

Periodically, I will reflect on my views and ask myself: am I being too critical of Jewish converts to Catholicism, in the face of heterodoxy? Am I truly employing Catholic principles on the question?

Yet, time and time again, I find myself being, perhaps, too lenient. Every convert has the right to the presumption of good will. But, for nearly every one of these ethnic Jews who convert, they persistently—without shame, too—are trying to smuggle in 1) liberalism and 2) philosemitism into the Church.

Unreal.

Fr. Wilhelm Schmidt, S.V.D, explains the racial and cultural effects of the distortion and uprooting of the Jews, noting that they are not immediately taken away, not even by a true conversion and baptism. Rather they must be worked at, self-consciously and deliberately, if the converted Jew is to successfully assimilate into his host country. Upon conversion, however, the ethnic Jew importantly does belong to the Church and the Mystical Body, just like the gentiles.

Heartwarming.

The ‘state of Israel’ while existing de facto [in fact], does not—nor should—exist de jure [in law].

Israel, as a state, has no right to exist. The argument, using Catholic theology and legal principles, is laid out below in the embedded post. From each source, theological and legal, respectively, there is sufficient opposition to the Jews having their own State, right now and in perpetuity.

Catholics must get comfortable saying this. Invariably, when we are criticizing Zionism, organized Jewry or Israel as an entity today—particularly from a theological standpoint—the interlocutor will reflexively ask, “What, so are you saying Israel doesn’t have a right to exist?” Every time, defensively, the opponent is forced to admit, no, Israel certainly does have a right to statehood and should exist. However, this is not true, and thus it does not need to be our position. Rights are specified by their object and are owed in justice. Moreover, the burden of proof is still on the Jews, not Catholics, as to why the current ‘state of Israel’ is legally, which is to say morally, legitimate.

Why? To affirm Jewish statehood, in law, as a moral matter, would be to approve of their occupation, domination and incursion into Palestine. They did not, however, employ moral (legal) means to achieve their de facto statehood, abstracting from any of the theological reasons that exist in opposition to their having statehood.

As Fr. Raffaele Ballerini (S.J.) rightfully observed, “According to the sacred pages, the Jewish people must always subsist dispersed and wandering among other peoples, so that, not only with the deposit of the Scriptures, which they venerate and keep in reserve, but also with their very state, they bear witness to the faith of Christ. Who, through the mouth of David, prayed to the Father that He would not kill their lineage, which was hostile to Him, ne occidas eos (don’t kill them), but that He would disperse and degrade them with His power, disperge illos in virtute tua et depone eos (scatter them by your power; and bring them down) [Psa. LIX, 11].”

Pope Pius XI unmasks the feminist conspiracy against the patriarchy, the order instituted by God in his 1930 encyclical on Christian Marriage, Casti Connubii. The Holy Father warns against “false teachers” promoting equal rights between husband and wife and minimizing—even denying—the trusting obedience which the woman owes to her husband.

Later on, he outlines the agitation of married women who would neglect their duties as companion and mother, followed by their devoting themselves to “business and even public affairs”.

The Catholic Church teaches that a right, detached from its object, namely objective truth and goodness, is no ‘right’ at all.

Moral Legitimacy of Slavery

Summary:
Consequence of original sin, a punishment, but forbidden neither by natural nor divine law. Servitude is instituted by human law (outlined in various legal noscripts), though derived indirectly from the law of nature.

Proofs:
St. Peter (1 Pet. , II. 18) - “Servants, be subject to your masters, with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward.”

St. Paul (1 Tim., c. VI) - “Whosoever are servants under the yoke, let them count their masters worthy of all honor, lest the name and doctrine of the Lord be blasphemed… These things teach and exhort. If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to the sound word of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and to that doctrine which is according to piety, he is proud, knowing nothing;”

Pope Pius IX (Holy Office Ruling, 1866) -
“Servitude [slavery] itself, considered absolutely, is in no way inconsistent with natural and divine law, and there may be many just noscripts of servitude which can be seen among the approved theologians and interpreters of the sacred canons… From this it follows that it is not inconsistent with natural and divine law that a slave be sold, bought, exchanged, or given, provided that in his sale, purchase, exchange, or donation, the due conditions are accurately observed, which the same approved authors pursue and explain at large.”

Bp. Augustin Verot (A Tract for the Times, 1861) - “I wish to show on the one side, how unjust, iniquitous, unnoscriptural, and unreasonable is the assertion of Abolitionists, who brand slavery as a moral evil and a crime against God, religion, and society; whereas it is found to have received the sanction of God, of the Church, and of Society at all times, and in all governments. On the other side, I wish to show the conditions under which servitude is legitimate, lawful, approved by all laws, and consistent with practical religion and true holiness of life in masters who fulfil those conditions.”

Fr. Walter Hill, S.J. (Ethics, 1891) - “Hence, to be a slave by birth, is not against natural right, when the mother is legitimately a slave; any more than it is against natural right for one to be born poor, of plebian parents, of feeble body or mind, etc., for, as regard's these things which are extrinsic to man's nature, he is born to the rank, circumstances, or condition of his parents. Hence, in what is essential to human nature, all men are born equal; in what is extrinsic and accidental to human beings, men differ, and all are not equal as to such things… It cannot be demonstrated that slavery ought to exist in any nation; for, nature does not prescribe slavery; but it is shown that slavery may be legitimate, under some circumstances; or, that slavery is not simply or absolutely prohibited by the law or nature. Its existence, then, as legitimate, is proximately from human law; and it is in this sense that it was said to be derived indirectly from the law of nature.”

Finally, in by no means an exhaustive list, here are some Catholic saints, popes and historical figures who have owned slaves -
• St. Cornelius, Roman Centurion
• St. Philemon
• Gregory I, accepted a young boy as a slave and gave him as a gift to another bishop
• Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, historically owned many African and indigenous slaves

X 🔗

Further Reading
A Tract for the Times, Slavery & Abolitionism, being the substance of a sermon, preached by Bp. Augustin Verot in the church of St. Augustine, Florida in 1861 - (link)

The Roman ‘law of nations', which formed nearly the entire basis of modern European law, forbade marriages between members of different nationalities.

If you accept the Second Vatican Council and its official doctrinal interpretation, given by the conciliar hierarchy that continues to promulgate it, the worst you could say about Traditional Catholics who reject the same is the following...

In June of 1870, at the First Vatican Council, the Fathers were asked to sign a petition by Bishop Comboni to implore the mercy of God to remove the Curse of Ham from the African Negroes.

In the plea, later signed by sixty-eight bishops, he wrote, “Upon the heads of the children of Ham, so loaded down with miseries, there still weighs that curse, the most ancient ever uttered against a people; and the burning lands in the interior of Africa feel more violently and more cruelly the evil force of that curse.”

The principles that animated the American revolution and founding are no less deadly than those of the French revolution. In some respects, they are more evil. The reason being that the former, uniquely, are an insidious evil, not the honest, so to speak, evil found in the French experiment.

In the same way that communism, which is easily recognizable and nearly-always violent, is less dangerous than liberalism, which has a veneer of respectability and a subtlety that can go undetected. Mass executions of clergy and religious, followed by anti-Catholic legislation are easy to see. What is harder to detect, much less combat, is naturalism, inflamed by an individualistic and capitalistic spirit, preaching rights for true and false religion, alike.

Both systems of revolution, importantly, share the same, underlying anti-Catholic principles.

There is a soft Americanism that is being pushed by (no doubt) well-intentioned persons. It is an error, not rising to heresy, certainly.

The position is largely attitudinal, but its doctrine consists in key omissions. It is still trying to marry the American spirit and project with Roman Catholicism—which does not nor cannot work. Counterrevolution, conspicuously, does not apply to America in their minds.

The only antidote is an un-doing, in a fundamental way, of the American founding and constitution. Using legal means, of course. Not only is accidental reform of American ineffective (history has borne this out), it is wrong in principle.

The American Catholic hierarchy, before the council, were assiduous in their efforts to prove they were good Americans, forgetting that proving that they were good Catholics comes first, and necessarily would exclude the former. Unfortunately, to be a good American, in the proper sense, means repudiating the prevailing notion of what it means to be a ‘good American’.

Detailed response and critique of Gideon Lazar and his arguments about America and the founding.

https://x.com/americanreform_/status/1927895891257741674?s=46

In 1953, Pope Pius XII, emphasizing the hylomorphic nature of man, identified natural dispositions—which have a genetic basis—as “strongly influenc[ing] both the education of man and his future behavior”.

The relevant excerpt from his speech to the Participants in the International Symposium of Medical Genetics can be seen above.

The WM Review has kindly shared one of my essays on a big and often misunderstood question—namely, is America a Christian nation?

This is my first original essay and I hope to be composing more of these, on relevant political topics.

Additionally, other essays are in my queue that will be published along with my usual translation work. Please let me know in the comments if you like the writing or have suggestions.

https://x.com/thewmreview/status/1928803361328955604?s=46

Thought experiment for Mr. Kennedy Hall regarding the infallibility of canonizations - https://x.com/americanreform_/status/1929640990635446481?s=46