ON OCTOBER 19 MAITE NKOANA-MASHABANE, South African Minister of International Relations formally withdrew his country from the International Criminal Court (ICC) located in the Netherlands.
Masganbane indicated that the ICC is overreaching by forcing compliance on issues that violate the sovereign rights of the nation, specifically the ICC mandate to arrest Omar al-Bashir, President of Sudan during a state visit to South Africa.
IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE COMMUNIST COLLAPSE of 1989, Slovakia, like other Eastern European countries, fell under the sway of aggressive secularism, the dominance of foreign investors, and the political, social-cultural, and economic rhetoric of neoliberalism, which favors deregulation, privatization, multiculturalism, social austerity (a shrunken state role in alleviating poverty) and tolerance of LGBT and other aberrant moral-cultural values at odds with the traditional family oriented values. Such values are considered retrogressive by neoliberal progressives who clamor for tolerance of everything but traditional Christian values that they associate with tyranny, patriarchy, and fascism.
Cardinal Glemp the primate of Poland at the time of the communist collapse in 1989 had premonitions of the future challenges that would come from neoliberalism – materialism of a Western sort:
“We have withstood the onslaught of Atheistic Materialism, Marxism is dead; however I am not sure that we can withstand the onslaught of Western Materialism.”
The challenge foreseen by Cardinal Glemp certainly came to Eastern Europe (and also to Africa, Asia, and Latin America). Under the guise of liberal toleration and the rhetoric of prosperity, it sunk deeply into the soil of Slovakia. However, like the proverbial seed (Matthew 13: 5-7) that was planted on unprepared rocky ground it came up quickly, but because it lacked fertile soil its fruits were scorched or choked by the thorns of concupisence and greed.
Some fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep, and when the sun rose it was scorched, and it withered for lack of roots. Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it.
Consequently, the abundance promised was never forthcoming. However, their are signs of forthcoming political change indicate a departure from the neoliberal paradigm toward something new .
Unlike the American two party winner take all system, Slovakia, like other European countries has a system of “proportional representation”. This means that the percent of votes a party receives in an election determines the percent of seats they receive in parliament. Since the political landscape in most European countries is dotted with numerous political parties sometimes reaching as many as fifty, it is difficult to ever garner 51% of the vote and thus the government is composed of coalition governments made up of competing but ideologically aligned (or politically aligned) parties. In such a system, any party with 15% of the seats is considered a major party. The party with the largest number of seats is usually recognized as the party from which the Prime Minister is drawn.
In Slovakia, Prime Minister Robert Fico’s social-democratic party “SMER” controls 33% of the seats (in 2012 it held an overwhelming 44% of the seats); the other 67% are shared among nine other parties. Slovakia, like other European countries has surprisingly spawned a new grass roots Christian and Euro-skeptic political party. The “People’s Party” or “Our Slovakia” recently received 14 of the 150 contested seats or 8% the vote. The other pro-Christian party, the Slovak National Party (SNP) won 8.6% of the seats in parliament.
The nascent Our Slovakia Party is headed by Marian Kotleba, who is opposed to further integration with the European Union and is skeptical about NATO membership; he has referred to NATO as a “terrorist organization”. According to Kotleba, the national election
“Is the beginning of a new era for Slovakia. And as a result, we will save the country from where it was heading.” By this he was referring to the Western liberal agenda imposed after the collapse of communism, which favored foreign investment and liberal values over the interests the Slovakian people and their traditional Christian culture.
Kotleba, although maligned as a “Fascist” by Western pundits, rejects the Nazi label and suspects that it arises from his campaign against ingrained political and economic corruption and the kulturkampf against Christian values pursued by ideologues, who favors a neo-liberal agenda contrary to Slovakia’s indigenous patrimony. Not surprisingly, he also favors Slovakia’s economic independence as indicated by advocacy of a national currency and Slovakia’s exit from the Eurozone.
Because he is perceived as an agent of change, he finds support among the poor, marginalized, and young voters who are increasingly vocal and desirous for political and economic change that favors the broader common good.
The neoliberals promised to integrate the country with Europe, which at the time was attractive due to the European opposition to communism from which the countries of Eastern Europe were newly emerging. In reality this translated into the heavy burden of neoliberal reforms. When Slovakia joined the European Union in 2004, the road to economic, political and cultural serfdom under the banner of neoliberalism went into full swing.
Under a regiment of neoliberal structural reform whatever paltry compensation workers had grown accustomed to under the previous regime was removed. Instead, unemployed and underemployed workers were now blamed for their own impoverishment due to laziness, apathy, lack of proper education or moral ineptitude. In short, they were blamed rather than assisted by a new neoliberal state that busied itself with cronyism and increasing investment opportunities for foreign corporations and financial institutions. As in Poland and elsewhere, unemployment and inflation soared as a result of implementing market oriented neoliberal policies. The so-called neoliberal “Shock Therapy” was considered a necessary part of healing the dying economy. As a result of economic austerity resulting from planned shocking of the Slovakian economy and dominating its political landscape, the ever-growing economic fallout resulting from the therapy was excused by its ideological proponents and those on their payroll. It was not indicative, they said, of failed neoliberal polices but was to be attributed to the personal failure of the workers.
Nonetheless, overtime, the pull of a deregulated economy, the promise of state subsidies to foreign corporations, low wages accepted by Slovakian laborers, and falling property prices lured Western dollars. This infusion of foreign capital led to partial respite as Slovakia became a hub of auto production. Because the neoliberal rational calculus depends upon financial (rather than human) calculations necessary to attract and maintain foreign investment, wages remained low, unemployment high, health care abysmal and government social assistance minimal. These economic trends were exacerbated by cultural degradation and a systematic attack on traditional values via public education, the mass media, and foreign agents working to instill a liberal worldview throughout Slovakia.
As a result of these economic, political and social failures, the liberal agenda, so successful in the twentieth and early twenty first century has begun to collapse. Workers and astute politicians are waking up to the fact that liberalism, contrary to its promises, has exacerbated rather than improved the situation. Cultural degradation on top of psychological and social trauma, caused by economic prosperity for a few and impoverishment for many, has proven to be the straw that is breaking the neoliberal back. People are increasingly fed up with the whole liberal agenda and are seeing through the thin veneer of rhetoric daily fed to the lot of wary workers whose difficult living circumstances are clearing their vision and contributing to a closer affinity with the church as it had in Poland where the church became the hub of opposition to the communist regime.
These mounting pressures reached a head in 2012 when the “Gorilla Scandal” shook the people of Slovakia from their slumber and awoke them to the reality of pervasive political corruption that surpassed the evils of communism. People took to the streets all over Slovakia with a call for “REAL democracy”, that is democracy rooted in the dignity of the human person, every human person.
However, no one seemed to have the cure or a hand strong enough to promote real positive change throughout the country. Nonetheless, positive change is occuring. The neoliberal parties dedicated to the European Union, toleration of moral aberrations contrary to the natural and divine law, economic austerity, economic models that result in wealth for a few but not wide-spread prosperity for many, are being robustly challenged. In the place of old political parties new ideas and new parties wary of the EU, sick of “political correctness” and rooted in human dignity and traditional Christian values are surfacing in Slovakia as they are throughout Europe and the world.
Uniting under the banner “We are reclaiming our country,” Civic Resistance groups in Slovakia are clamoring for change. Their voice is resonating throughout the country where it sounds something like this:
Following the collapse of communism, the state was grabbed by a new regime of corrupt politicians and corporate oligarchs who were given a license to engage in theft of public property. Under the guise of “democracy” they have lied to the people and enriched themselves.
Of course people who say such things are a threat to a well controlled social system built on liberal values. Consequently, they are often branded as lunatics, Nazis, Fascist, etc. by the neoliberal press supported by neoliberal political cronies. Unwelcome and thus lacking a seat in the Ministry of Propaganda, Civic Resistance found a viable outlet in the social media from which they were able to successfully promote the candidacy of Marian Kotleba as Governor of the Banska Bystricia region in Southeast Slovakia.
Their dedication paid off. In 2013 the People’s Party supported Kotleba for Regional Governor. They promoted him as an honest political maverick dedicated to social justice and able to challenge financial institutions that feed on the people’s ignorance and their need for money, to challenge corporate multinationals who siphon off profits instead of investing them in higher wages, who expatriate profits to foreign shores after abusing the environment and failing to contribute to the social needs of the host country and they promoted Kotleba as a person able to challenge corrupt politicians who permit their country’s natural resources and cultural legacy to be looted by neoliberal oligarchs and robber barons.
Kotleba’s candidacy was cemented when the EU began to issue quotas for refugees from the Middle East. At this point Brussels was denounced as dictatorial; the People’s Party’s desire for traditional national values gained momentum by a perceived threat of an army of refugees who, under the banner of EU tolerance, would subject a Christian nation to foreign and often antithetical Islamic values. Because similar arguments could be heard in Russia, Poland and Hungary, the momentum for a Christian consensus among Slavic nations continues to grow to the chagrin of neocons and neoliberals.
The People’s Party provides Slovakia with a voice for the majority that had been seduced by the subtle caress of liberalism. The caress of liberalism has turned into a calloused hand felt by many. Increasingly frustrated by economic inequality, the moral program of liberalism along with political correctness and an inability of politicians to defended the common good have led to a point of critical mass – average people are waking up and beginning to see through the propaganda and ideological warfare waged upon them and are beginning to coalesce.
Slovakia is experiencing a social-political-economic-moral crisis similar to other European nations and to other nations around the globe subject to the neoliberal agenda resulting in a culture of death. As in these other places (such as Nigeria, Philippines, Brazil, Hungary, Poland to name a few), Slovakia will predictably turn away from its neoliberal romance turned sour with the West. Unless neoliberalism adopts a more friendly face and permits sovereign nations to decide their own directions and to participate fairly in the international arena, unless it permits traditional and Christian values and innovative economic and political models rooted in those values to come to the fore, it will continue to fade into the past. Either way, liberalism seems done. It is failing and these countries provide ample evidence of its failure. If liberalism adopts a more friendly face and permits new economic and political models as well as the protection of traditional moral values it is no longer liberalism. If it fails to do these things, it is simply going to exhilarate its own demise. Basically, liberalism is dead, but it refuses to admit its demise and has therefore become a warmonger using threats of military force to impose its agenda throughout the world.
It believes so greatly in its liberal cause, that is willing to adopt any means to bring them to fruition. It believes, as did one of its founding patriarchs, Jean Jacques Rousseau that people must be “forced to be free.”
“In order then that the social compact may not be an empty formula, it tacitly includes the undertaking, which alone can give force to the rest, that whoever refuses to obey the general will (majority consensus) shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free.”
This is the sentiment of neocons and liberals in America today – it is the voice trying to dominate the American landscape and the voice driving American foreign policy in such places as Slovakia. It is a voice at odds with the Christian faith and the authentic dignity of the human person made to the image of the Holy Trinity. Is there any greater danger in the world today?
THE WORLD BANK
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB) was created in 1944 at the Bretton Woods Conference held in the United States at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. The WB is an international lending institution consisting of approximately 177 member states for which it guarantees credit or to whom it makes loans from a portfolio of approximately $220 billion. Like the IMF, the WB is concerned with economic restructuring according to the neoliberal model and with major infrastructure projects intended to enhance economic efficiency. Although the WB does lend money to rescue defaulting economies (the IMF is more proficient at this), its primary focus is funding economic development, environmental sustainability, health projects, infrasructure etc. In any one year, the bank’s total loan portfolio ranges from approximately $5 up to $30 billion US dollars spread out among member states.
The WB, headquartered in Washington, DC, exists to promote and facilitate foreign investment and international commerce. WB loans, like IMF loans include “Structural Adjustment Programs” (SAPs) intended to nudge borrowing countries toward structural reforms in a market oriented direction. Loans also include policy requirements that reflect a neoliberal economic bias stipulating such things as:
Social Austerity (reductions in social spending on such things as health and welfare)
Reduction of Subsidies (on basics such as food and energy)
Deregulation
Reduction of Trade Barriers (such as taxes on imports that often compete with domestic supply
Promotion of Foreign Ownership of Businesses
Conversion of Agricultural Yield from Food to Cash Crops for Export
Privatization
Current concerns of the WB include deforestation, depletion of the ozone and other ecological concerns, AIDS, and vaccinations for communicable diseases. The WB has set goals to help realize United Nations Millennium Development Goals set in 2000[1]. In this regard, the G8 (a group of eight industrialized nations—United States, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, Russia and Canada, —that promote global consensus on international security, economic growth, terrorism and energy, and crsis situations, 2005) guaranteed up to $55 billion dollars to the WB, IMF and African Development Bank to cancel the debt of heavily indebted poor nations.
The WB consists of two entities:
(1) The International Development Association (IDA) and
(2) The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD).
International Development Association
The IDA was established in 1960 and is headquartered in Washington, DC. It consists of 173 member countries and offers both grants and loans to over 80 member states with the highest credit risk – over half of these countries are in Africa. Receiving countries are evaluated according to per capita income (below $1200 per year) and their record of implementing policy requirements aimed at economic and social reform and poverty reduction. The IDA is considered the friendly or soft lending arm of the World Bank: It provides loans for up to 40 years, with built in grace periods often up to ten years, and low interest rates 1-3 %. Often loans are provided at no interest to regular client states. Like the IMF, loans come with neoliberal assumptions about economic growth that must be met to continue in good standing.
In the new millennium, the WB has financed numerous projects including access to clean water for over one hundred million people, for the training of over three million teachers, and for the vaccination of over three hundred million young people. It has also made hundreds of millions of dollars in loans available to small businesses and has funded extensive bridge and road repair.
WB funds come through contributions of member states and from occasional supplementary funds from the IBRD and the International Finance Corporation (IFC)[2]. Funds are replenished according to a three year cycle. Almost 60% of all funding originates in the United States with another 30% coming from France and England. In 2014, the fund was replenished with almost $50 billion US dollars from contributing states. Refunding does not occur without extensive discussion and amendment of goals and policies due to prevailing political concerns brought by contributing members.
Interested primarily in health care, education, infrastructure and clean water in the neediest states, over half of IDA’s capital is issued to fund projects in thirty African states. Recent special, interests include agriculture, electricity, education, and roadways.
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) is considered the “robust arm” of the WB. As such, it makes loans available to middle income nations. The IBRD provides financial services including grants, risk guarantees, and loans; like its sisters bank the IDA, the IBRD is headquartered in Washington DC. The IBRD was established in 1944 with the goal of providing financial assistance for the recovery of Europe following World War II. It is governed by a board of governors with a governor from each of its 187 member states.
Like the IDA, the IBRD receives funding from its member states, but unlike the IDA it receives most of its funding by borrowing from private investors on the international investment market by selling bonds – the IBRD funds only sovereign states and projects backed by such states. On average, the IBRD raises in a range form $20-$30 billion dollars in bond sales annually of which approximately 90% is used for financing projects; it has a debt portfolio[3] of approximately $100 billion.
The Bank offers a number of financial services and products, including flexible loans, grants, risk guarantees, financial derivatives, and catastrophic risk financing. It reported lending commitments of $26.7 billion made to 132 projects in 2011.
ANALYSIS:
Although World Bank policies have, in fact, generated wealth, newly created wealth tends to concentrate in small pockets of financial institutions, political patrons, and those with strong ties to the developed North. It is becoming increasingly difficult for third world governments to convince their people that short-term austerity will result in long term prosperity when after thirty years all it has done is increase glaring disparity. Increasing disparity is increasingly associated with increasingly autocratic governments, which are necessary to implement and enforce World Bank SAPs that have worked to polarize society and essentially harm the people in whose name they are introduced.
Structural Adjustment have exacerbated poverty,
“Since the 1980s adjustment has helped create a net outflow of wealth from the developing world, which has paid out five times as much capital to the industrialized countries of the North as it has received.”[4]
Since Third World leaders and their staff are often educated at business schools in the North America (along with World Bank staff financers and economists educated in neoliberal theory) and, as a result, become advocates of the liberal market economy, when markets fail, they are, more often than not, perplexed and unsure where to turn for answers. Following a decade of imposed neoliberal polices that brought economic depression to Columbia, Columbian President Galviria stated,
“I have to confess that the evolution of the country after my government has left me perplexed, like many other Columbians” (President Galviria of Columbia). [5]
Columbia and other nations habituated to the Word Bank structural model have experienced ever mounting debt such that the “debt of the developing world equals about one-half their combined GNP and nearly twice their total export earnings”. This is the result of SAPs that orient these economies “toward generating foreign exchange…designed to ensure that debtor countries continue to make debt payments.[6] Although exports are high, they fail to meet social needs because domestic companies are often privatized and end up in the hands of foreign investors who are able to repatriate profits to Northern bank accounts.
Moreover, since exports tend to increasingly consist of cash crops, farmers are often not producing enough food crops to feed their own people. Exports are intended to pay salaries of workers who in turn are able to buy imported food; however, because the market is unregulated, food prices tend to rise making it increasingly difficult to meet basic nutritional needs, which were once provided by indigenous third world farmers themselves.
This is not the only way that World Bank loans limit the creative ability of local peoples to help themselves. Rather than being able to spend the money efficiently looking for cost-effective materials and contracting experts from the home country, World Bank loans are notorious for including agreements that bind third world parties to purchase not only products and materials from developed countries but expert advice as well.
While SAPS help countries to service their debts and help enrich a small class of political opportunists, financial officers, and corporate executives, workers continue to live in poverty exacerbated by decreased social services and rising food prices. Moreover, they are alienated from economic and political decision making that affects their lives and their livelihood, and by turning them into individual competitors estranges them socially and culturally from each other. Interestingly, as much as the IMF, World Bank and industrialized nations of the North laud free markets, the leading nations of the North have all been assisted by government spending, trade tariffs, subsidies, and generous social welfare programs denied to the developing nations.
Because of its social costs, this model of development is not likely to succeed. New development models are being developed that are more congruent with social needs and the human dignity of workers that are involved in micro finance and economic development rather than top down macro and structural approaches. Rather than placing all the burden on the state thereby depriving its citizens of initiatives, new approaches are operating closer to the people and include intermediate social group such as trade unions, human rights advocates, farmer cooperatives, fraternal and self-help organizations that are more focused on family needs, health care, increasing earnings, cultural development, social organization and broad communal consensus.
A vanguard of Christian philosophers and social scientists foresaw the negative consequences of overemphasis on macro development, unregulated capitalism, statism and free market cronyism. Their ideas found their way into Catholic Social teaching, which has over the course of a century and a half, developed a well thought out approach to human social-economic-political development congruent with the kind of micro-development that is organically developing throughout the third world.
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FOOTNOTES
[1] The Millennium Summit of the United Nations gathered in 2000 to articulate eight goals necessary to enhance international development. All member states and over twenty international organizations agreed to work toward achieving the following goals by 2015.
[2] The IFC, headquartered in Washington DC, was created in 1956 to stimulate economic development by using its funds to invest in private sector for profit ventures aimed at reducing poverty. It is particularly concerned with agriculture, health, microfinance, and education. Currently, it invests approximately $18-20 billion annually in such projects .
[3] A group of investments in debt owned by a bank or company intended to earn interest. The portfolio includes such things as debtor’s names, amounts of debts, balance due on debts etc.
[4] Global Exchange: http://www.globalexchange.org/resources/wbimf/faq
[5] Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt (CADTM); http://cadtm.org/spip.php?page=imprimer&id_article=668
[6] Global Exchange: http://www.globalexchange.org/resources/wbimf/faq
FRANCE MIGHT BE THE OLDEST DAUGHTER of the Church, but she is also the birthplace of the so-called “Enlightenment” an esoteric term connoting Gnosticism – the false light of wisdom promised Eve in Eden, which stealthily crept out of the Masonic Salons of Paris hidden in the amphibologies (double entendre) of the Encyclopedists[1] . These duplicitous agents of the New Age prepared the way for the French Revolution, the rise of modern liberalism, and the subsequent attack on Christendom (on the Catholic clergy, Catholic aristocracy and Catholic monarchy) that Napoleon Bonaparte spread across Europe all the way to the gates of Moscow under the banner of revolutionary banner of “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity”.
It is possible to grasp something of the double meaning intended by such words as liberty, equality, and fraternity (they mean one thing to adepts and another to the uninitiated or conditioned commoners) by recourse to the writings of François-Marie Arouet (known by his nom de plume as Voltaire), especially by recourse to his Dictionary of Philosophy. Voltaire was a major contributor to the Encyclopedia, a patriarch of the Enlightenment and a Masonic adept initiated into Freemasonry in 1778 at the Lodge of Nine Sisters.
Though Voltaire and the men involved in the cabal with him called themselves “Philosophes”, they were an affront to philosophy, the type of men Paul was referring to when he stated:
“For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” (Romans 1:22).
Paul indicated that there would be Christian philosophers according to Christ and deluded philosophers full of deceit allied with the world against Christ:
“Beware lest any man cheat you by philosophy, and vain deceit; according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ” (Colossians 2:8).
May of the Catholic aristocracy, the “Old Guard”, were educated in the Thomistic and Augustinian philosophy of Christ. They knew the voice of Christ and the voice of His adversary (John 10:27). Theerfore, though a minority, they valiantly resisted while it was prudent to do so. However, in the long run, they had to surrender the field and capitulate under a tidal wave of liberalism that covered all of Europe by the end of the 19th century.
Since then, France has oscillated back and forth among several political alternatives; nonetheless, most of the proposed alternatives have contained some facet of liberalism and France has remained in the liberal camp as a supposed avant-garde force propelling Europe, and the world, into a new global order under the sway of liberalism.
However, in France, as elsewhere, the liberal ideologues have grown so arrogant and accustomed to easy victory that they have too hastily put forward an agenda so indecent that the supposed “morons” whom they have socially engineered, and whom they abhor, are no longer acting so gullible. They are beginning to question events and even to demand change. Things have gone too far and there is a noticeable counter-current welling up from the reservoirs of France’s deep cultural and spiritual patrimony coalescing into a political current that is swiftly moving in the opposite direction.
Emergence of Marine Le Pen and the National Front
Although the National Front (FN) was launched on October 5, 1972, it is part of a conservative tradition that opposed the French Revolution of 1789. Consequently, the FN rejects both the revolution and its liberal legacy. Sensing the weakness of France’s various conservative constituencies, constituencies that represent its cultural patrimony, its historic national ethos, its spiritual traditions and its ancient moral precepts rooted in Christian faith and reason, leaders of the FN realized the importance of forming a national front, an umbrella party that united the conserving elements of France under one political banner.
Then on January 15, 2011, Marine Le Pen unexpectedly became the leader of the FN and since then has catapulted a municipal party into a national political power. The FN received nearly 5 million votes in the 2014 parliamentary elections and gained 25% of all the seats in parliament. Then in 2015 in the first round of regional elections, it placed first in half of the 13 newly reapportioned regions ahead of every party in France. In Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, little Le Pen won 41% of the vote. News like this sent shock waves throughout Europe (as similar events were happening in the Balkans and Central Europe, but no one foresaw such an event in modern France, the Mother of Liberalism.
The FN, much to the chagrin of EU leaders and the political elite of France, has rejected both liberalism and neoliberalism and is researching innovative economic policies that are more popular and serve the broader common good. Although they remain open to leaving certain vital industries such as transportation, health care and energy in the hands of the government, they are rejecting globalism and unfavorable EU mandates and policies in favor of national identity and cultural legacy.
Thus, the FN has referred to the EU as:
“…the last stage on the road to world government” and a “puppet of the New World Order.”
Le Pen does not represent the ultimate solution for the French people, but she is an astute political barometer measuring change in the political atmosphere indicating widespread discontent with worn-out liberal rhetoric and indicative of a growing movement favoring social and political solutions that respect French tradition and its cultural and spiritual legacy as well as the Christian identity of Europe. Consequently,
Le Pen admires Vladimir Putin and refers to him as a “defender of the Christian heritage of European civilization.”
Marine Le Pen believes that
“Russia is unfairly ‘demonized.’ She has claimed that the campaign against the Russian leadership is being conducted at the highest levels of the European Union with support from the United States.”
French National Values
As a leader deeply interested in protecting the national patrimony, Le Pen is a sharp critic of continued immigration of Islamic fundamentalists who refuse to adopt the traditions and values of their host country but continue to oppose and ridicule them while receiving protection for doing so from the EU. Tolerance does not mean permitting a guest to dictate to you what you must believe in your own house while persecuting a person if he or she dared do such a thing in their own house. For example, Christian refugees in Kelkheinm, Germany are being persecuted by Muslims in a Christian country and getting away with it.
In a Report put out out by “Open Doors” a Christian Alliance operating in Germany 743 attacks against Christians in German refugee camps have been documented in this year alone. The Report states that:
“It must be assumed that there is a high number of unreported cases….Effective measures for the protection of religious minorities have yet to be implemented.” In Spain for example,
“Christian refugees thrown overboard and drowned 84 In Spain, a migrant from Cameroon has been indicted of having murdered six Christian refugees. The accused and captain of a boat supposedly blamed a Catholic priest for the rough sea during the passage. He beat the priest with a sharp piece of wood and threw him overboard. Subsequently he and another refugee searched all other boat passengers for any items identifying them as Christians and subsequently dumped another five Christians into the sea. The state prosecutor has charged him of premeditated murder.
In France, Open Doors Reports:
“In January 2016, the public learned about violent incidents directed against Christian refugees at Grande-Synthe, a camp in Northern France. Regarding the general situation of the Iranian-Christian minority, labour union leader David Michaux confirmed that there was a real problem between Muslims and non-Muslims. “The Muslims are trying to drive the Christians out from the camp.”
Numerous Christian migrants have filed complaints but have not received any help. This statement by an Iranian Christian is typical,
“I reported the death threats I received to the Info point several times in Persian but they did not react. I reported it two to three times.”
A Lutheran Pastor Gottfried Martens, verified the neglect of Christian refugees under attack by Islamic refugees in Germany.
“There is not a single case in which Christian refugees in my church had been attacked and injured in their accommodation where the investigation was not dismissed in the end,” he said. “In every case the attacked Christians word stood against the word of the attackers, who were always in the large majority. … In the end, each of the criminal charges only leads to further humiliation of the victims and a loss of confidence in the constitutional state.”
Marine Le Pen understands what is happening to Christians abroad and even in European refugee camps and wants to put a stop to it.
Since it is the European Union that is imposing these foreign ideologies on France, it is the right of France to leave the EU. Recalling BREXIT, she proposes a FREXIT:
“The Brits have chosen their destiny and decided to leave the European Union. They made the choice of independence… I will hold a referendum (if elected president) on France’s EU membership because you have the right to speak out… Yes, my friends, it is possible to change things.”
Trump or Clinton?
Regarding presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton, CNN reported that Le Pen favors Trump because Clinton means entrenched interests, therefore globalism and more war to protect entrenched interests. Comparing herself to Trump she stated:
“We are similar because we are not part of the establishment, we are not part of the system, and we do not depend on anybody and we don’t take orders from anyone,” she said.
“For France, anything is better than Hillary Clinton. Anything but Hillary Clinton. Because I think Hillary Clinton means war. Hillary Clinton means devastation. It means world instability.”
ARTICLE BEING COMPLETED
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NOTES
[1]The group of French philosophers who worked together to produce renowned Encyclopedie. The work was overseen by Denis Diderot, and promoted as a Dictionnaire raisonne des sciences, des arts, et des métiers (Dictionary of arts, sciences and letters). The writers intended to provide a comprehensive overview of the entire field of human knowledge from the perspective of the “Enlightenment”
POLISH DEMOCRACY HAS UNDERGONE a series of changes from the time of its modern inception during the exciting days of Solidarnosc back in 1989. Since then it has moved from a nascent democracy, birthed under Lech Walesa, to an unforeseen reversion back to socialism, followed by a decisive move toward secular neoliberalism backed by significant Western dollars for military, cultural and economic purposes. For a while it looked as though Poland’s Catholic identity was in jeopardy as the country adopted more and more liberal tenets from the West. It was as if the words of Primate Cardinal Glemp in 1989 were coming true:
“We have withstood the onslaught of atheistic materialism, Marxism is dead. However, I am not so sure that we can withstand the onslaught of Western (hedonistic) materialism.”
All three tenets of liberalism: economic, political and moral were being unpacked in Poland. First came profuse promises of financial assistance followed by the schooling of political leaders in civics and liberal democracy taught by legions of libertarian ideologues representing think tanks supported by the State Department. Next, the painful Western neoliberal prescription for austerity and economic restructuring was swallowed along with a toxic sugar-coated pill of foreign investment that made it appear palatable. This was followed by foreign purchase and then control of corporate businesses and by interference in politics at all levels. After establishing a beachhead in the NGOs and multinational corporations along with control of a significant percentage of financial institutions and garnering political sway in Warsaw, the liberal cultural agenda was introduced propped up by broad scale advertisement and countless Western dollars with strings attached to ideological items such as the family, sexuality, liberal toleration of the LGBT agenda, and related issues that are all part of the liberal paradigm for freedom, freedom, that is, without a place for Christianity in the public forum. Following decades of this liberal “shock treatment”, it seemed as if Poland would collapse under the onslaught of Western materialism as foreseen by Cardinal Glemp.
The Poles, however, are a resilient people, a people with a thousand years of rich cultural history steeped in the legacy of Roman Catholicism. Poland’s cultural, spiritual, and intellectual roots run very deep, too deep, in fact, for even such an insidious program as neoliberalism nurtured by profuse capital infusion. The liberalizing of Poland is a top priority of the US State Department, and of the EU. Consequently, Poland “has been the largest beneficiary of subsidies from the EU”. Poland has been infused with Western capital because it is externally important geopolitically, and because it is a show case for liberal democracy. Consequently, those who call for the toleration of anything but fell threatened by Christian developments in Poland are threatening to stop the cash flow as the ultimate “trump card” necessary to avert what they perceive as the ultimate disaster – Poland returning to its Catholic identity:
“Brussels can start to take another look at the funds that over the years have contributed so much to the Polish economic miracle (they amount to more than the entire Marshall Plan for postwar Europe in today’s dollars).”
Like other peoples around the globe, the Poles are becoming painfully aware of liberalism’s shallow promises and are beginning to see through its friendly propaganda. Poles are an intellectual people well accustomed to secularism and broad programs of propaganda that were imposed upon them by an all controlling communist regime that strained to falsely appear in favor of human rights and dignity; they are awakening to the fact that a similar program is being fed them by liberal ideologues who have taken up key positions throughout the country in a war to stealthily impose neoliberalism upon them contrary to their traditional values, contrary to their Catholic heritage. The fruits of twenty years of liberal rule are now readily apparent and people are reeling back from their negative experiences. Communism worked against man and society, so too does liberalism. Consequently, sober Poles have quickly awoken to this reality; as they led the world against communism, they are leading the rally for a renewed Christian Europe cognizant of their reputation as the “Rampart of Europe”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLJcJi3qPpM
FATIMA and DIVINE MERCY
At Fatima Our Lady promised and Era of Peace and in a series of approved apparitions that took place in Poland and that have the highest approbation of the Catholic Church, Jesus Christ revealed to Saint Faustina that a change was coming and that the impetus for the change was to be the nation of Poland:
“I bear a special love for Poland (he said), and if she will be obedient to My will, I will exalt her in might and holiness. From her will come forth the spark that will prepare the world for My final coming” (Diary, 1732).
It is not surprising then, that after 20 years of liberalism the Polish people have given a political mandate to the Law and Justice Party (PiS), which has strong ties to the Catholic Church. Party leaders recently endorsed a total ban on abortion with support from the Church. Jarolaw Kaczyński, Chairman of PiS told reporters that
“In these (moral) matters, as a Catholic, I follow the teachings of the bishops.”
Under Kaczynski’s leadership, PiS not only won the presidency, it also has solid control of the parliament (SEJM), which lacks any viable liberal component for the first time in decades.
The Prime Minister of Poland, Beata Szydło, is also the Vice Charman of PiS; she also also supports the anti-abortion legislation. As does the new Polish President, a devout Catholic Andrzej Duda.
In the United States and Argentina nuns and laity who publicly ridicule bishops, disrupt Mass, challenge priests during their homilies and desecrate sacred objects are considered heroes. These tactics are therefore adopted to ridicule the church and win public support.
In Poland, however, such acts are considered profanations, profanations which if carried out by trols, conditioned masses, or paid subversives would actually help rather than hinder the church. Thus covert actions such as these that work elsewhere are backfiring in Poland. According to Polish political scientist Marek Migalski reaction to disruptions at Mass in Poland are similar “to the outrage in Russia when punk rockers Pussy Riot staged a 2012 protest in a Moscow cathedral, which left many ordinary Russians aghast and actually boosted support for Vladimir Putin.”
“If the face of the opposition is aggressive feminists yelling in church, then it helps PiS,” he said
The following two quotes are examples of the vitriol coming from liberal ideologues manifesting their biased anti-Christian sentiments and also manifesting the growing unity among Slavic nations, a unity which is an increasing challenge to the liberals that is not going away:
“Both Poland and Hungary now offer a toxic ideological brew that is reminiscent of interwar Europe: anti-communism and anti-capitalism can be combined and justified in the name of a highly intolerant nationalism based on Christian values that conclusively define who is a true Hungarian or true Pole.
Liberal ideologues and pundits are coming undone as they watch these developments. Because they are unable to stop or avert them by their usual methods, they are predicting a gloomy picture for themselves as other Slavic countries of Eastern Europe join Poland, Hungary and Slovakia in the march toward Christian social renewal:
“Today we witness the emergence of a new Authoritarian International in the region, with Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and possibly Croatia as potential future members alongside Hungary and Poland.“
Hungary’s largest political party is Fidesz and its third largest political party is Jobbik; are both proponents of Christian social renewal and both cooperate with PiS and other Polish patriotic movements. Their cooperation “is rooted in a shared vision of Europe, Márton Gyöngyösi, a leader of Jobbik responsible for foreign policy, told POLITICO.”
“As opposed to liberal values based on individualism, secularism, consumerism and multiculturalism, we support the defense of the nation state, its traditions, ethnic composition and Christian values.”
Having a comprehensive view of the political landscape in front of him and and a prudential vision of what is possible in the current climate, a senior advisor to President Duda recently indicated that he thinks the time has come for change:
“Now begins the process of reconquering the country, and it may be brutal.”
As stated above, “Law and Justice (PiS) swept the table of Polish politics this year, first unexpectedly winning the presidency in May and then in October taking an outright majority in the parliament. The party now wields more clout over Poland than any government since the end of communist rule a quarter century ago” (http://www.politico.eu/article/poland-pis-politics-kaczynski-tusk/).
Poland is certainly a country to watch and to emulate. From her will “come the spark” that will prepare the world for the final coming of Jesus Christ. She certainly seems to be living up to her destiny among nations.
IN AN ABSOLUTELY SURPRISING MOVE REVERBERATING around the globe, Rodrigo Duterte recently elected president of the Philippines (May 9, 2016), and a leader who has an unusually high 85% approval rating, has announced his rejection of liberalism and his intention to newly align his country with China and Russia. On October 19, 2016 Duterte openly declared
Referring to the United States Duterte stated:
“Your stay in my country was for your own benefit” … “So time to say goodbye, my friend.”
“I will not go to America anymore. I will just be insulted there.”
Like other world leaders in Nigeria, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, China and Russia et al, Duterte slammed the United States for the arrogance with which it imposes its unwanted liberal policies on sovereign nations around the globe as if it were the world’s moral police force.
Jonathan Kwitny authored a book entitled “Endless Enemies” in which he described the Philippines as “the Zaire of Asia,” a country in which the United States engaged in covert political activity to manipulate politics and the economy in its favor.
“Every anti-guerrilla campaign has been victorious, and every election, real or rigged, has produced the winner the US government desired.”
Manipulation such as this helps the outside observer to understand why Duterte recently told President Obama to “go to hell” and refereed to him as a “son of a whore”. In September 2016 Duterte stated that he was “about to cross the Rubicon” with the United States and announced his intention to distance himself from Washington and to turn the country toward China and Russia.
Despite all his rhetoric, Duterte plans to maintain relations with the West to benefit his country as much as possible. According to Duterte’s Finance Secretary, Carlos Dominguez, and his Socioeconomic Planning Secretary, Ernesto Pernia:
“We will maintain relations with the West”…but we desire stronger integration with our neighbors. We share the culture and a better understanding with our region.”
Dominguez and Pernia indicated that the move is about improved business relationships and a desire for regional growth and integration. The Filipinos are also interested in Chinese capital investment and access to a regional market of 1.8 billion people.The National Economic and Development Authority referred to Duterte’s actions as a move toward “economic regional re-balancing.”
Dominguez further explained that Duterte is not altering the country’s foreign policy but “recalibrating” it to open the country to Asian markets.
“The President has indicated to us that he’d like to strengthen and exploit opportunities…in countries other than our traditional trading partners.”
So after all the bluster and bravado, the statements by Duterte seem calculated to increase good relations with China in hopes of profiting the Philippines. During the state visit Dominguez signed several significant agreements with his new Chinese partners: two are Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) on Financing Cooperation, and an Agreement on Economic and Technical Cooperation.
According to the ‘Manila Bulletin“, The first MOU, is with the Export-Import Bank of China (EXIM), which will permit EXIM to fund Filipino infrastructure, energy and agricultural projects.
The second MOU, was signed with Gao Hucheng, the Chinese Commerce Minister. This MOU provides financial support to conduct feasibility studies for major infrastructure, agriculture and rural development projects. Dominguez and Gao also signed an Agreement for Economic and Technical Cooperation. According to this agreement, China will grant approximately $700 million for anti-drug efforts underway in the Philippines and to strengthen law enforcement and security cooperation between the two countries. In all, the Chinese government has made $6 billion dollars in development assistance available to the Philippines and another $3 billion dollars in credits from the Bank of China to boost infrastructure projects in the Philippines.
Interview with Phillipine Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez
These business deals, seem to support Duterte’s political rhetoric. A warning flag has been raised that could point to significant changes in Filipino foreign policy. Duterte is in favor of new partnerships contrary to American wishes and also in favor of a new tranche of investments, which will presumably involve the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) rather than continue relationships with worn out international institutions such as the IMF and World Bank who have left a bad taste in the mouths of Third World political leaders.
Moreover, four days prior to his departure for Beijing, Duterte had an interview with Hong Kong-based Phoenix Television during which he iterated his openness to joint military exercises with Russia and China and reiterated his intent to end war games with the United States.
Asked specifically if he would consider joint military drills with China or Russia instead of the United States, Duterte stated:
“Yes, I will. I have given enough time for the Americans to play with the Filipino soldiers.”
Then, referring to joint military exercises with the US he stated:
“This will be the last. It has been programmed. I do not want my soldiers to be humiliated.”
Moreover, The Philippine leader has also manifested a keen interest in purchasing Russian weapons. According to the Washington Post, on October 5 Duterte addressed the White House and US State Department on the matter:
“Although it may sound shit to you, it is my sacred duty to keep the integrity of this republic and the people healthy…. “If you don’t want to sell arms, I’ll go to Russia. I sent the generals to Russia and Russia said ‘do not worry, we have everything you need, we’ll give it to you.’ And as for China, they said ‘just come over and sign and everything will be delivered’,” Duterte previously stated that he wanted “cheaper weapons with no strings attached.”
All this comes at a time when Japan is openly planning a Peace Treaty with Russia. On Dec 3, Japanese Prime Minister Abe will meet with President Putin. According to STRATFOR (October 20, 2016):
“Both leaders see opportunity in cooperation; Russia, rich with energy but starved of foreign investment, is an ideal partner for Japan, hungry as it is for energy with money to burn. Trade between the two countries has quadrupled since 2006, reaching a record-high $34.8 billion in 2013.
“Russia has completed the infrastructure needed to handle 2.1 million barrels per day — nearly half of Russia’s overall oil export level of 4.8 million barrels per day. Of the 716,000 barrels per day that Russia exported in 2012, only 141,000 went to Japan — though now Russia has the capacity to send much more.
Russia is also looking to export natural gas to Asia as well.
Russian natural gas company Gazprom has announced it will build a 2,500-kilometer (1,553-mile) pipeline to the Pacific for the new natural gas supplies that it says will be online by 2016. Russia is now considering a liquefied natural gas facility at Vladivostok to handle part of the 25 billion-50 billion cubic meters that Gazprom plans to produce out of East Siberia. East Asia already receives small amounts of natural gas from Russia’s Sakhalin-2 project. Japan has increased its intake of Sakhalin-2 liquefied natural gas in recent years to 10 billion cubic meters annually compared to the 3 billion cubic meters it received before the Fukushima disaster.
The United States is not happy about these developments nor is it happy about the meeting between Putin and Abe that took place earlier this year in May.
“The (Japanese) prime minister has been bucking Washington’s pressure over Russia all year. U.S. President Barack Obama warned Abe not to visit Russia for a summit with Putin in May, but he did anyway” (STRATFOR October 20, 2016).
It seems that more and more people are bucking Washington these days. Deals such as these spell the political and economic death of liberalism in the South Pacific and Asia.
Our Lady promised an Era of Peace and She is keeping Her word. Liberalism, in the name of peace, is the world’s largest promoter of violence and war – so it has to become a thing of the past. Consequently we are witnessing its death around the globe in places such as the Philippines, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Nigeria while simultaneously witnessing the promised conversion of Russia.
HUNGARY, LIKE POLAND AND SLOVAKIA et al has recently, amid scathing criticism, began a movement opposed to the moral, economic, and political program of neoliberalism promoted by leading Western nations. Along these lines, Hungary like its Slavic counterparts, is resisting the EU proposal to relocate Islamic refugees. Of three million one hundred thousand Hungarians who cast a vote in a nationwide referendum, 98 percent were opposed to the EU migrant quota plan.
According to Prime Minister Viktor Orban .
“Brussels can’t impose its will on Hungary (that is, its refugee policy or any objectionable neo-liberal policy). The choice was between Brussels (capitol of the European Union) and Budapest (capitol of Hungary), and people chose Budapest” (Britain First).
FOREIGN POLICY VIS A VIS RUSSIA
In addition, amid harsh criticism from the West, Hungary, like an increasing array of other nations, maintains a different foreign policy vis a vis Russia than the EU would like to see.
In February 2015, Orban stated that,
‘We think that without cooperation with Russia, we cannot achieve our goals.” (Business Insider)
POLITICAL PLATFORM AND CHRISTIAN VALUES
Hungary’s leading Fidesz Party led by Prime Minister Orban has much in common with the newly elected Law and Justice Party of Poland (Pis). Both favor a strong sense of patriotism and are increasingly skeptical of EU economic, political and social initiatives; they both favor limits on immigration, oppose liberal moral values and liberal control of the media while promoting national and traditional moral values. They both are staunch supporters of Christianity and Catholic social teaching regrading distributive justice in service of the broad common good. Both Fidesz and Pis favor progressive Catholic social ideas of private property hallowed by charity and justice with a communitarian dimension in favor of broad distribution that provides a social safety net to poverty and a strong element of human dignity. Both Poland and Hungary have moved to place moral limits on the media amid loud outcry from the EU, which in the name of tolerance views any such restrictions as a violation of human rights rather than a guarantor of human dignity and therefore a boon for human rights.
Along this moral contour, Hungary is in the vanguard with Russia regarding the protection of Christians around the globe. Orban has clearly indicated that Hungary will work in tandem with the Pope Francis and the Catholic Church to aid persecuted Christians. In fact, he regards Catholics as:
“the most vulnerable Christians in the world” (Vatican Radio).
Surprisingly, it is not the United States or the United Kingdom that has vowed to protect Christians around the globe, but Russia and Hungary. Like Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban has made it clear that predominantly Catholic and Christian Hungary will defend persecuted Christians in the Middle East. Orban has, moreover, backed his words with action; he has created an executive department to aid persecuted Christians and has endowed it with an initial operating budget of $3.35 million.
SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE AND OF HUMAN LIFE – ABORTION RESTRICTIONS
As in Poland and Russia, the Prime Minister of Hungary has moved to protect unborn children and to promote the sanctity of life by amending the Hungarian Constitution to articulate the principle that life begins at conception and that marriage consists of a perpetual union of one man and one woman.
Orban is a sure proponent of democracy and human dignity, but he is opposed to what he refers to as “liberal democracy” (democracy with a neoliberal tinge) in favor of “illiberal democracy“, that is democracy without liberalism. In short, Hungary under Orban has moved toward its Christian heritage in favor of traditional Christian values; it is increasingly opposed to EU liberalism in favor of a Christian commonwealth
In addition to Fidiez, Jobbik (Hungary’s third largest political party) shares many of its ideas along the Christian spectrum. Jobbik defines itself as
“A principled, conservative and radically patriotic Christian party“, whose “fundamental purpose” is the protection of “Hungarian values and interests.”
As a result of the parliamentary elections of 2014, Jobbik received over a million votes thereby garnering 21% of the seats in parliament becoming the third largest party in the National Assembly.
OPPOSITION TO NEOLIBERALISM AND ZIONISM
As in Russia and to a lesser extent among Pis leaders in Poland, Jobbik is opposed to the spread of neoliberalism or global capitalism and the international institutions that support and perpetuate it. As a result, it advocates Hungary for Hungarians and closely monitors foreign investment within its borders. Like the others, Jobbik is characterized by a strong distrust of Zionism and international finance, perhaps the most contentious political, social, and cultural issue in play today. As a result, Jobbik directly opposes Jewish (read Zionist) investments in Hungary.
Party Chairman Gabor Vona has been quoted as saying:
“The Israeli conquerors, these investors, should look for another country in the world for themselves because Hungary is not for sale.”
ALLIANCE WITH POLAND: THE SUPREME COURT AND PARLIAMENT
As a final display of its defiance for liberalism, the European Union has threatened sanctions on Poland for its recent move to place moral limits on the foreign press and the implied protection of Christian values via the appointment of “midnight judges” to the national tribunal (supreme court). According to Politico, PiS has an alliance with the Roman Catholic Church, and will resist liberalism imported from Western Europe. As such, the new Minister of Culture, Piotr Gliński, has stated that in accord with Christian social values:
“Single-sex marriage, abortion, gender ideology — these are red lines for us”
After years of experiencing ideological dominance by the supreme court, similar to the ideological dominance exercised by the United States Supreme Court that resulted in abortion rights (Roe v Wade), Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the founder of PiS, referred to the tribunal as
“The bastion of everything in Poland that is bad.”
Consequently, it is not surprising to see such rancor over supreme court appointments, over justices that can rule on the constitutionality of laws passed by parliament. Law and Justice (PiS) however, not only won the presidency; it also gained an outright majority in the parliament. PiS now governs by popular mandate and wields more power than any government since the collapse of communism in 1989. Consequently, any attempt by the EU to impose sanctions on Poland for something that is well within its sovereign rights to oppose are highly unlikely. Hungary, moreover, has indicated, it will veto any such sanctions should they be imposed.
Poland is on a similar path as Hungary, its geographical, historical, and political cousin: One of the first steps taken by Orban in Hungary was placing limits on that nation’s constitutional court because that court was loaded with liberal and neoliberal ideologues opposed to Christian renewal.
Orban has clearly stated his preference for Christianity and opposition to worn out liberalism. One of his primary goals is to build an
“illiberal new state based on national foundations”
There was a visible Hungarian presence at the annual nationalist march in Warsaw on Polish Independence Day, November 11. “Friendship today, alliance tomorrow,” read a bilingual banner carried by youths with Jobbik flags.
According to a Polish priest nestled in the crowd:
“Nowhere in the world is there such a tie between nations.”
Hungary’s cooperation with the Polish National Movement is rooted in a shared vision of Europe; Márton Gyöngyösi, a leader of Jobbik responsible for foreign policy, told POLITICO.
“As opposed to liberal values based on individualism, secularism, consumerism and multiculturalism, we support the defense of the nation state, its traditions, ethnic composition and Christian values,”
August 29, 1931 (Rianjo, Spain)
My confessor orders me to inform Your Excellency of what took place a little while ago between the Good Lord and myself: as I was asking God for the conversion of Russia, Spain and Portugal, it seemed to me that His Divine Majesty said to me:
“You console Me a great deal by asking Me for the conversion of those poor nations. Ask it also of My Mother frequently, saying: Sweet Heart of Mary, be the salvation of Russia, Spain, Portugal, Europe and the whole world. At other times say: By your pure and Immaculate Conception, O Mary, obtain for me the conversion of Russia, Spain, Portugal, Europe and the entire world.”
Then Jesus said:
‘Make it known to My ministers, that given they follow the example of the King of France in delaying the execution of My request, that they will follow him into misfortune. It will never be too late to have recourse to Jesus and Mary.’
Later, in an intimate communication, Our Lady complained to me, saying:
“They did not wish to heed my request!… Like the King of France, they will repent and do it, but it will be late. Russia will have already spread her errors throughout the world, provoking wars, and persecutions of the Church: the Holy Father will have much to suffer.”
Frere Michel de la Sainte Trinite
The Whole Truth About Fatima
Vol.II, Prt.II,
ACT OF CONSECRATION
Finally John Paul II made the conscration on march 25, 1984, but it was late, Russia had already spread her errors throughout the world as are Lady had said they would if the poopes failed to heed Her requestsImmediately after the Holy Year Mass for Families:
1. “We have recourse to your protection, holy Mother of God”.
As we utter the words of this antiphon with which the Church of Christ has prayed for centuries, we find ourselves today before you, Mother, in the Jubilee Year of the Redemption.
We find ourselves united with all the pastors of the Church in a particular bond whereby we constitute a body and a college, just as by Christ’s wish the Apostles constituted a body and college with Peter.
In the bond of this union, we utter the words of the present Act, in which we wish to include, once more, the Church’s hopes and anxieties for the modern world.
Forty years ago and again ten years later, your servant Pope Pius XII, having before his eyes the painful experiences of the human family, entrusted and consecrated to your Immaculate Heart the whole world, especially the peoples for which by reason of their situation you have particular love and solicitude.
This world of individuals and nations we too have before our eyes today: the world of the second millennium that is drawing to a close, the modern world, our world!
The Church, mindful of the Lord’s words: “Go… and make disciples of all nations… and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28:19-20), has, at the Second Vatican Council, given fresh life to her awareness of her mission in this world.
And therefore, O Mother of individuals and peoples, you who know all their sufferings and their hopes, you who have a mother’s awareness of all the struggles between good and evil, between light and darkness, which afflict the modern world, accept the cry which we, moved by the Holy Spirit, address directly to your Heart. Embrace, with the love of the Mother and Handmaid of the Lord, this human world of ours, which we entrust and consecrate to you, for we are full of concern for the earthly and eternal destiny of individuals and peoples.
In a special way we entrust and consecrate to you those individuals and nations which particularly need to be thus entrusted and consecrated.
“We have recourse to your protection, holy Mother of God”: despise not our petitions in our necessities.
2. Behold, as we stand before you, Mother of Christ, before your Immaculate Heart, we desire, together with the whole Church, to unite ourselves with the consecration which, for love of us, your Son made of himself to the Father: “For their sake”, he said, “I consecrate myself that they also may be consecrated in the truth” (Jn 17:19). We wish to unite ourselves with our Redeemer in this his consecration for the world and for the human race, which, in his divine Heart, has the power to obtain pardon and to secure reparation.
The power of this consecration lasts for all time and embraces all individuals, peoples and nations. It overcomes every evil that the spirit of darkness is able to awaken, and has in fact awakened in our times, in the heart of man and in his history.
How deeply we feel the need for the consecration of humanity and the world—our modern world—in union with Christ himself! For the redeeming work of Christ must be shared in by the world through the Church.
The present year of the Redemption shows this: the special Jubilee of the whole Church.
Above all creatures, may you be blessed, you, the Handmaid of the Lord, who in the fullest way obeyed the divine call!
Hail to you, who are wholly united to the redeeming consecration of your Son!
Mother of the Church! Enlighten the People of God along the paths of faith, hope and love! Enlighten especially the peoples whose consecration and entrustment by us you are awaiting. Help us to live in the truth of the consecration of Christ for the entire human family of the modern world.
3. In entrusting to you, oh Mother, the world, all individuals and peoples, we also entrust to you this very consecration of the world, placing it in your motherly Heart.
Immaculate Heart! Help us to conquer the menace of evil, which so easily takes root in the hearts of the people of today, and whose immeasurable effects already weigh down upon our modern world and seem to block the paths towards the future!
From famine and war, deliver us.
From nuclear war, from incalculable self-destruction, from every kind of war, deliver us.
From sins against the life of man from its very beginning, deliver us.
From hatred and from the demeaning of the dignity of the children of God, deliver us.
From every kind of injustice in the life of society, both national and international, deliver us.
From readiness to trample on the commandments of God, deliver us.
From attempts to stifle in human hearts the very truth of God, deliver us.
From the loss of awareness of good and evil, deliver us.
From sins against the Holy Spirit, deliver us, deliver us.
From sins against the Holy Spirit, deliver us, deliver us.
Accept, Oh Mother of Christ, this cry laden with the sufferings of all individual human beings, laden with the sufferings of whole societies.
Help us with the power of the Holy Spirit to conquer all sin: individual sin and the “sin of the world”, in all its manifestations.
Let there be revealed, once more, in the history of the world the infinite saving power of the Redemption: the power of merciful Love! May it put a stop to evil! May it transform consciences! May your Immaculate Heart reveal for all the light of Hope!
June 13, 1929 – Tuy, Northwest Spain at the Convent of Saint Dorothy — Sister Lucia Speaking:
“I had sought and obtained permission from my superiors and confessor to make a Holy Hour from eleven o’clock until midnight, every Thursday to Friday. Being alone one night, I knelt near the altar rails in the middle of the chapel and, prostrate, I prayed the prayers of the Angel. Feeling tired, I then stood up and continued to say the prayers with my arms in the form of a cross. The only light was that of the sanctuary lamp.”
“Suddenly the whole chapel was illumined by a supernatural light, and above the altar appeared a cross of light, reaching to the ceiling. In a brighter light on the upper part of the cross, could be seen the face of a man and his body as far as the waist, upon his breast was a dove also of light and nailed to the cross was the body of another man.”
“A little below the waist, I could see a chalice and a large host suspended in the air, on to which drops of blood were falling from the face of Jesus Crucified and from the wound in His side. These drops ran down on to the host and fell into the chalice.”
“Beneath the right arm of the cross was Our Lady and in her hand was her Immaculate Heart. (It was Our Lady of Fatima, with her Immaculate Heart in her left hand, without sword or roses, but with a crown of thorns and flames). Under the left arm of the cross, large letters, as if of crystal clear water which ran down upon the altar, formed these words: Grace and Mercy” (Memoirs of Sister Lucia).
“I understood that it was the Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity which was shown to me, and I received lights about this mystery which I am not permitted to reveal.”
Our Lady then said to me:
“THE MOMENT HAS COME IN WHICH GOD ASKS THE HOLY FATHER, IN UNION WITH ALL THE BISHOPS OF THE WORLD, TO MAKE THE CONSECRATION OF RUSSIA TO MY IMMACULATE HEART, PROMISING TO SAVE IT (That is Russia only) BY THIS MEANS.”
“THERE ARE SO MANY SOULS WHOM THE JUSTICE OF GOD CONDEMNS FOR SINS COMMITTED AGAINST ME, THAT I HAVE COME TO ASK REPARATION: SACRIFICE YOURSELF FOR THIS INTENTION AND PRAY.”
May 29, 1930
Lucy’s confessor later gave her a series of questions about the apparitions at Pontevedra. One of the questions was: “Why five Saturdays and not nine or seven, in honor of the Sorrows of Our Lady?” Upon receiving the questions, Lucia prayed to Our Lord to enlighten her with the answer, which a few days later she gave to her confessor. This is what she wrote:
As I was in the chapel with Our Lord part of the night of May 29-30, 1930, and speaking to Our Lord about questions… I suddenly found myself more intimately possessed by the Divine Presence, and if I am not mistaken, here is what was revealed to me:
“My daughter, the motive is simple: there are five ways in which people offend and blaspheme against the Immaculate Heart of Mary”:
“Here, my daughter, is the reason why the Immaculate Heart of Mary made Me ask for this little act of reparation and, in consideration of it, move My mercy to forgive those souls who had the misfortune of offending Her. As for you, try incessantly with all your prayers and sacrifices to move Me to mercy toward those poor souls.”
“And if one could not accomplish all those obligations on a Saturday, would Sunday not do?”
“The practice of this devotion will be equally accepted on the Sunday following the first Saturday, when, for just reasons, My priests will allow it.”
Frere Michel de la Sainte Trinite
The Whole Truth About Fatima
Vol.II, Prt.II, Ch.VII
FURTHER APPARITIONS – PONTEVEDRA SPAIN:
(1) December 10, 1925 – Pontevedra Spain
After discerning for some time the wish to become a religious, in 1925 eighteen-year-old Lucy joined the Dorothean Sisters. She became a postulant at the Order’s convent at Pontevedra, Spain where Our Lady, as She promised in 1917, came to reveal to Lucy the first part of God’s plan for the salvation of sinners and world peace: the reparatory Communion of the First Saturdays of the month.
Lucy, referring to herself in the third person, describes the encounter:
“On December 10, 1925, the Most Holy Virgin Herself appeared, and beside Her, borne by a luminous cloud, the Child Jesus. The Most Holy Virgin put Her hand on her shoulder and showed her, at the same time, a Heart surrounded by thorns which She held in the other hand. At that same moment, the Child said to her“:
ll
‘Have compassion on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother, covered with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce It at every moment, and there is no one to make an act of reparation to remove them.’
Then the Most Holy Virgin said:
‘Look, My daughter, at My Heart, surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce Me at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You at least try to console Me and announce in My name that I promise to assist at the moment of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months shall receive the sacrament of Confession, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep Me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to My Immaculate Heart.
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(2) February 15, 1926 – Pontevedra Spain
DESPITE SERIOUS RESERVATIONS on the part of her confessors, Lucy was soon supernaturally urged to continue working to make Our Lady’s request known. As recorded in her memoirs, Lucy stated,
“On the 15th [of February 1926], I was very busy with my chores, and I scarcely thought of it [the apparition of the preceding December 10]. I was about to empty the garbage can outside the garden. At the same place, several months previously, I had met a child whom I had asked if he knew the Hail Mary. He had replied yes, and I had asked him to say it for me, in order to hear him. But as he would not say it alone, I had recited it three times with him.”
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“At the end of the three Hail Mary’s, I asked him to say it alone. As he remained silent and did not appear capable of saying it alone, I asked him if he knew the church of Saint Mary. He answered yes. I then told him to go there every day and to pray thus: ‘Oh my Heavenly Mother, give me Your Child Jesus!’ I taught him that prayer and departed.”
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“Then on February 15, while returning as usual [to empty a garbage can outside of the garden], I found there a child who appeared to me to be the same (as previously), and I then asked him: ‘Have you asked Our Heavenly Mother for the Child Jesus?’ The Child turned to me and said: ‘And have you revealed to the world what the Heavenly Mother has asked you?’ And saying that, He transformed Himself into a resplendent Child. Recognizing then that it was Jesus, I said to Him”:
‘My Jesus! You know very well what my confessor said to me in the letter I read to you. He said that this vision had to be repeated, there had to be facts permitting us to believe it, and that the Mother Superior alone could not spread this devotion.”
‘It is true that the Mother Superior, alone, can do nothing, but with My grace, she can do anything. It is enough that your confessor gives you permission, and that your Superior announces this for it to be believed by the people, even if they do not know who it was revealed to.”
‘But my confessor said in his letter that this devotion already exists in the world, because many souls receive Thee every first Saturday of the month, in honor of Our Lady and the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary.’
‘It is true, My daughter, that many souls begin, but few persevere to the very end, and those who persevere do it to receive the graces promised (that is, not out of love for the Blessed Mother). The souls who make the five first Saturdays with fervor and to make reparation to the Heart of your Heavenly Mother, please Me more than those who make fifteen, but are lukewarm and indifferent.’
‘My Jesus! Many souls find it difficult to confess on Saturday. Will You allow a confession within eight days to be valid?’
‘Yes. It can even be made later on, provided that the souls are in the state of grace when they receive Me on the first Saturday, and that they had the intention of making reparation to the Sacred Heart of Mary.’
‘My Jesus! And those who forget to form this intention?’
‘They can form it at the next confession, taking advantage of their first opportunity to go to confession.’
After that the Child Jesus disappeared without saying anything more.