|
The Kingship of Christ and The Conversion of the Jewish Nation
by Rev. Denis Fahey, C.C.Sp.
Chapter IV
The Struggle of the Jewish Nation against the true Messias
JEWISH NATURALISM
The decay in the social acceptance of the divine plan for ordered life, since the thirteenth century, has had for inevitable consequence the gradual disappearance of supernatural influences and ideals from the political and economic life of nations. This is the first result. There is a second. The elimination of the supernatural from public life is making smooth the path for the coming of the natural messias. “He that is not with Me is against me.” (St. Matt. XII, 30). The world is not standing still and the once Christian nations have to choose between returning to the integral truth of the Catholic Church and falling more and more fully under the yoke of those who are systematically preparing for the advent of the natural messias. The supernatural Messias proclaimed the supremacy of the Catholic Church, His Mystical Body, which is both supernatural and supranational and respectful of the natural qualities and particular rôles of all nations. The natural messias can only have for end the subjection of all nations to the Jewish nation; for the refusal of the Jews, whose national organisation had been set up by God to prepare for Christ, to accept the supranational Church of Christ, inevitably leads to their setting up their nation as the highest embodiment of the divine order.
Calvary has then a twofold aspect. It is at one and the same time the rejection of the supernatural Messias with His programme, which is summed up in the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ, and the proclamation of a programme to be accomplished by the natural messias to come. In the Mystical Body of Christ all nations are on equal footing, each nation aiming at the temporal prosperity of its subjects so as not only not to hinder but to favour their attaining their supernatural end — union with the Blessed Trinity in supernatural life. The natural messias to whom the Jews look forward is to bring happiness to the world by the imposition of Jewish domination. It cannot be otherwise, given their messianic aspirations. Our Lord asked them to be the heralds of a supranational kingdom. Their refusal meant that they elected instead to impose their national form on the world, and they have put all their intense energy and tenacity into the struggle for the organisation of the future messianic age. Thus when any nation turns against the supernatural Messias it will be pulled in the direction of subjection to the natural messias. Satan has a wide view of things. He will be quite prepared to utilise German naturalism against our divine Lord. There is laughter in hell when human beings succumb once more to the temptation of the Garden of Eden and put themselves in the place of God, whether the new divinity be the Jewish race or any other race.
The Jewish ideal is interpreted differently by different Jews. The orthodox Jews want to return to Jerusalem, to rebuild the temple and to reinstitute their worship, while awaiting the coming of a personal Messias. The non-orthodox or Reform Jews have departed from the central hope of Judaism by rejecting belief in a personal messiah.[1] But they believe in the advent of a messias in the sense of a messianic age which will come through the leadership and domination of their race. “In general the Jews,” writes the Jew, Bernard Lazare, in his well-known work, L’Antisémitisme, “even the revolutionaries, have kept the Jewish spirit, and if they have given up religion and faith, they have nevertheless been formed, thanks to their ancestry and education, by the influence of Jewish nationalism. This is true in a very special way of the Jewish revolutionaries who lived in the first half of this [nineteenth] century. Heinrich Heine and Karl Marx are two typical examples.” This is true also of the Jews of high finance, the Rothschilds, the Warburgs, the Kahns, the Schiffs, etc., etc. They are one with their people in the ideal of the domination of the race and, therefore, in opposition to the supernatural life coming from our Lord Jesus Christ, Who, according to them, attempted to turn aside the Jewish nation from its destined goal.
Does that mean that all Jews are bad men? Needless to say, it does not. There are Jews in whom may be seen excellent natural qualities, and the supernatural life of grace is poured out upon us all by our Lord, even upon those who reject Him. It does mean, however, that all Jews, in proportion as they are one with the leaders and rulers of their race, will oppose the influence of the supernatural life in society and will be an active ferment of naturalism. Let us take some examples from New York where the Jews are powerful. We read in the New York Jewish paper, Freiheit, of January 10th 1937: “According to the Jewish religion, the Pope is the enemy of the Jewish people by the very fact that he is the head of the Catholic Church. The Jewish religion is opposed to Christianity and to the Catholic Church in particular.” Again we find in the New York Jewish National Day of December 14th 1935: “The public schools must be kept clear of Christmas carols and other Christmas influences. We want all this Christmas propaganda stopped.”
Thus where the Jews are powerful, they openly attack the supernatural Messias and the supernatural life of grace which comes from Him. In countries where they are only advancing to power, they content themselves with de-supernaturalising the observances and customs which have sprung from acceptance of the supernatural Messias. When the latter process has been carried on for a sufficiently long time and Catholics have grown weak, the open attack on the observance of Sunday or Christmas Day, for example, can then be launched.
As an example of Jewish action in the elimination of the supernatural significance of a Christian observance, let us take the custom of exchanging Christmas cards. Christmas is in reality the anniversary of the birth of our Redeemer, of the Second Adam who restored the supernatural life of our souls. That is the real inner reason for our joy on that day. Families and friends come together to celebrate the coming amongst us as a little human child of Him in Whom we are one as members of His Mystical Body. The body is meant to have its share of the happiness too, because the Son of Man knows that we are human beings. Now the exchange of Christmas cards is meant to remind us of these great facts in their due relation. The supernatural significance of the great feast of the Nativity should of course be always prominent. Yet what do we find? Cards which show only holly and Christmas puddings have some relation to the feast, it is true, but not to the Christ Mass. Others with merely a row of dogs or a few birds have nothing to remind the recipient of what the rejoicing is for, while Yule tide greetings seem to refer to some pagan festival and to be preparing the way for a revival of paganism.
In this process of eliminating the supernatural Messias from the celebration of the anniversary of His birth, Messrs Raphael Tuck and Sons, Ltd., the largest firm of Christmas card manufacturers, have certainly played a great part. “The Directors of this firm,” according to The Britisher of December 15th, 1937, “are registered as Gustave Tuck, Desmond Adolph Tuck and William Reginald Tuck, Bt., and the Secretary is a Mr. A. G. Jacobs. All three directors appear in the Communal Directory of the Jewish Year Book. Mr. Desmond Tuck is a warden of the Central Synagogue. Gustave Tuck is a member of the Jewish Board of Deputies Committee, a member of the Committee for the fund for German Jewry,” etc. This firm is not alone, but it has certainly been a great influence in propagating naturalism by fostering a naturalistic tone.
It will be useful for Irishmen to examine how much of Dublin’s real property has already passed into Jewish hands. Such a control must bring influence, and Jewish influence will operate against Christian social principles. Irish Catholics can see the advance of the elimination of the supernatural from public life, when a Jewish shop exhibits a card to the effect that the shop will be open all day on Christmas Day, and when Jewish professional men make appointments for Sunday morning. This disruption of the organisation of society based on the reality of the supernatural life of grace and on the vital significance of the Mass cannot proceed without disastrous effects on Catholics individually and as a body. For we know that it is only through the supernatural life which comes from our Lord that we can be good men according to the way which God requires and can correct the defects of our natural life. On the one hand, then, the increase of Jewish influence, with its inevitable naturalistic, that is, anti-supernatural, character, cannot take place without such disruption. On the other hand, we are exhorted to work for the return of society to Christ the King so that, instead of having to combat influences hostile to our supernatural life when we leave the Church after Mass, we shall on the contrary be aided by the current of life around us. Accordingly, Jewish naturalism renders conflict inevitable.
The Jews, as a nation, are objectively aiming at giving society a direction which is in complete opposition to the order God wants. It is possible that a member of the Jewish nation, who rejects our Lord, may have the supernatural life which God wishes to see in every soul, and so be good with the goodness God wants, but objectively, the direction he is seeking to give to the world is opposed to God and to that life, and therefore is not good. If a Jew who rejects our Lord is good in the way God demands, it is in spite of the movement in which he and his nation are engaged. Our Lord Jesus Christ alone is the source of the goodness God wants to see in every human being, the goodness due to participation in the inner life of the Blessed Trinity. No Jew, in virtue of what he objectively stands for, is supernaturally good as God wants him to be.
Hence there would seem to be a regrettable confusion of thought in the article on The Jews in Ireland, which appeared in The Standard (Dublin), March 3rd 1939. The article stated: “The Standard stands for the practical application of Christian principles in the public life of Ireland . . . Doubtless, there are good Jews and bad Jews, just as there are good and bad non-Jews in every country. We may praise the good and reprobate the bad . . .”
The article in The Standard was perfectly correct in insisting upon the Christian principle of exclusion of hatred of the Jews as a race. The inculcation of that spirit of charity towards the Jews, however, is not the only Christian principle that has a bearing on the problem. To work for the return of society to Christ the King, and so secure the triumph of the supernatural spirit of the Mystical Body in social life, is surely a Christian principle. The Jewish nation in an organised entity opposed to the treatment of our fellow human beings as members of Christ. We, must, therefore, combat their naturalism. Some Catholics seem to forget that the Jews who, in their terrible opposition to God, were plotting the death of our Saviour were so“pious” and “God-fearing” and “good” that they would not go into the hall of Pilate’s palace, “that they might not be defiled but that they might eat the pasch.” (St. John XVIII, 28). Pilate had to yield to their scruples and go out to them, yet alas! they were intent on the most awful crime ever committed, the crime of deicide.
Jewish naturalism, then, is disruptive of all social organisation based upon the divinity of our Lord. This disruptive process inevitably leads to a reaction on the part of the subjects of Christ the King and thus renders social conflict unavoidable. But, besides these two harmful effects, there is a third. Jewish naturalism is injurious to the Jews themselves. Opposition to the supernatural life of grace that comes from our Lord and, consequently, to ordered submission to God, our Father, is disastrous for the Jewish soul and character. Writing of the ceremonies and rites of the Old Law, such as circumcision and the worship of the synagogue, St. Thomas says: “In like manner, the ceremonies of the Old Law prefigured Christ as having yet to be born and to suffer; whereas our sacraments signify Him as already born and having suffered. Consequently just as it would be a mortal sin now for anyone, in making a profession of faith, to say that Christ is yet to be born, which the fathers of old said devoutly and truthfully; so too, it would be a mortal sin now to observe those ceremonies which the fathers of old accomplished with devotion and fidelity. Such is the teaching of St. Augustine” (Ia IIae, Q. 103, a. 4). Objectively, therefore, the Jews as a nation put themselves against the ordered return to God, which can only be through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Their opposition has not only had dire consequences in preventing and retarding the world’s acceptance of Him, but also sad effects on themselves. The results of that ceaseless battle against order are becoming increasingly visible amongst them. The persistent rejection of the one mediator, Christ Jesus, in spite of abundant light and grace, is having its inescapable consequences. As their power in the material order grows, the Jews are ceasing to believe in the God of Israel and are falling a prey to pantheism in its various forms, Marxian and other.
Does it then follow that all Jews are pantheists? It does not. In all this reasoning about the Jewish nation we are dealing with what we may speak of as moral laws in a wide sense. We cannot deduce conclusions therefrom to every individual member of the race. We must take account of the play of human liberty under the influence of the grace that comes from the Sacred Heart of Jesus to the members of the race which He loves as His own. We must affirm, however, that the Jews as a nation and therefore the vast majority of their individual members, given the solidarity of their national organisation, will everywhere show themselves hostile to the supernatural life.
His Excellency Right Rev. Antonio Garcia, Bishop of Tuy, one of the signatories of the Collective Letter of the Spanish Hierarchy of July 1st 1937, has summed up in striking language the essential features of the present struggle in the world. He had a splendid opportunity of seeing the Spanish phase of it. Mgr. Garcia writes as follows: “It is evident that the present conflict is one of the most terrible wars waged by Antichrist, that is, by Judaism, against the Catholic Church and against Christ. And at this crisis in the history of the world, Jewry uses two formidable armies: one secret, namely that of Freemasonry; the other, open and avowed, with hands dripping with blood, that of the Communists and all the other associated bodies, Anarchists, Anarcho-Syndicalists, Socialists, as well as the auxiliary forces, Rotary, and Leagues of Benefaction . . . in which are preached the exclusion of Christ, of His morality and of His doctrine, or in which one hears at least that abstraction is made of such, as if Jesus Christ had not clearly declared: ‘He that is not with me is against me.’”
A writer who sees in a study of the consequences of the Jewish nation’s naturalism merely a series of fantastic statements about a supposed Jewish conspiracy has not grasped either the unity of the divine plan or the meaning of the Kingship of Christ. The Jews do work with abnormal secrecy, and in the Masonic society they certainly have a powerful secret auxiliary force working for naturalism, along with open and avowed auxiliary forces of Communists, Anarchists, etc. But it is a fact patent for all to see, that, in the world as it exists, the Jews, as an organised nation, refuse to accept Him Who is the Cornerstone of the building and the Foundation of right order, and look forward to a messianic era to be ushered in by another messias. Do they not proclaim this from the house tops? Klausner, Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in his book, Jesus of Nazareth, writes as follows: “What is Jesus to the Jewish nation at the present day? To the Jewish nation he can be neither God nor the Son of God, in the sense conveyed by belief in the Trinity. Either conception is to the Jew not only impious and blasphemous, but incomprehensible. Neither can he, to the Jewish nation, be the Messiah: the kingdom of Heaven (the ‘Days of the Messiah’) is not yet come . . . [The ethical code of Jesus] is no ethical code for the nations and social order of today, when men are still trying to find the way to that future of the Messiah and the Prophets, and to the ‘kingdom of the Almighty’ spoken of by the Talmud, an ideal which is of this ‘world’ and which, gradually and in the course of generations, is to take shape in this world.” A critic may point out that the attack on Christianity by immoral art and by unbelief would continue without Jews in the world. It is quite true that, even if the Jews were to disappear utterly, there would still be original sin in the world and consequently forces of revolt working for naturalism, under the leadership of Satan, whose whole being is in revolt against the supernatural life of grace. What must be insisted upon, however, is that in that hypothesis, the best organised visible force, the one with the greatest cohesion and dynamic energy, would be withdrawn from the naturalist camp.
The leaders of the Jewish race have a terrible responsibility. St. Thomas insists (IIIa P.Q. 47, a. 6 ad 1), that the excusing words of our Lord: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” (St. Luke XXII, 34) were uttered on behalf of the common people, but not on behalf of the leaders of the Jews. Not only have they formed the ordinary people of their race to consider the idea of Our Lord being the Messias promised to their fathers as absolutely absurd, but they keep them in strict subjection. Pogroms in which the rank-and-file of the Jewish nation suffer serve the useful purpose of keeping them in absolute dependence on their leaders.[2]
THE OPPOSITION OF JEWISH NATURALISM TO OUR SUPERNATURAL WELL-BEING
The fundamental nature of this opposition will be seen more clearly when we examine a point in which what I have been saying differs to some extent from the thesis of a writer whose name is a household word in Catholic circles. In his work on the Jewish question, Mr. Belloc writes as follows: “We are asked to believe that this political upheaval [the Bolshevik revolution by which the Jews got control of Russia] was part of one highly organised plot centuries old the agents of which were millions of human beings all pledged to the destruction of our society and acting in complete discipline under a few leaders superhumanly wise. The thing is nonsense on the face of it. Men have no capacity for acting in this fashion . . . moreover the motive is completely lacking. Why merely destroy, and why, if your object is merely to destroy, manifest wide differences in your aims? . . . The conception of a vast age-long plot, culminating in the contemporary Russian affair, will not hold water.”[3]
Four points need to be touched upon. First of all, the opposition between the supernatural Messias and the natural messias is in the very nature of things. The Jews, as a nation have refused to accept the supernatural Messias, God Himself, Who came into His own world to restore our most real life, and they still look forward to another messias. They are therefore necessarily opposed to the true order of the world. As I have already said, the Jews work with abnormal secrecy and in the Masonic society they have a powerful secret auxiliary force working for naturalism, but I am here speaking of their opposition as a nation to the supernatural. It is absurd and confusing to speak of that opposition as a plot or a conspiracy, for not only is it clear to us but the Jews themselves proclaim it openly. We must always bear in mind that the world is one, and that it is, only through acceptance of our Lord Jesus Christ as the true Messias that we can live our lives as the objective order of the world demands. Mr Belloc seems to miss the force of the opposition between naturalism and the supernatural. That is one point.
Again, opposition to the order God has established in the world leads inevitably to decay in belief in God among the Jews, and to corruption in regard to the correct attitude towards their fellow human beings and in regard to the means to be employed to get other nations to accept the messianic message. It is morally inevitable that nations which resist Cod and oppose the supernatural order of the world should suffer decay in the process. The excesses of the Bolshevik revolution thus find their explanation. We are, however, dealing with a moral law in the wide sense. God is merciful, and the Sacred Heart of Jesus loves the members of his own race with a special love. We cannot, as has been said, draw conclusions from such a law to all the individual members of the nation.
The third point concerns the differences amongst the Jews. Of course, there are differences amongst them and that, more unavoidably than amongst other nations, because of their opposition to order, but that fact cannot hide the truth of their strongly organised national solidarity. Is not the sympathy of the Jewish-controlled press throughout the world with the Muscovite, that is, Judaeo-Russian, Red government of Spain a proof of a strong unity?
The fourth point is that the Jews are not attacking Christian supernatural civilisation merely for the sake of destroying it. They are demolishing what for them are the accretions due to pagan conceptions, by which Catholicism has disfigured the messianic ideal. They want to prepare the way for the messias who, according to them, is still to come and who is to bring about peace and harmony amongst all the people of the world under their own rule. They demolish for the sake of reconstructing on another foundation. No wonder they persecuted St. Paul for his insistence on the fact that “Other foundation no man can lay, but that which is laid; which is Christ Jesus.” (1 Cor. III, 11).
The orthodox Jews speak of the Fatherhood of God, but they refuse to accept God’s supreme manifestation of His paternity, His sending of His only-begotten Son. They consider as blasphemous the true doctrine of the Blessed Trinity and of the supernatural life by which we can enter into the family circle of the Blessed Trinity and love the Father with the Son and the Holy Ghost. In their pride they want to impose their will on God instead of humbly accepting His Will. In their pride they oppose physical descent from Abraham to the true doctrine of spiritual descent from him in unity of faith. “Know ye, therefore, that they who are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham . . . for you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus . . . And if you be Christ’s then are you the seed of Abraham, heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians III, 7, 26, 29). In their pride, they refuse to see in the prophecies of Isaias about the sufferings of the Messias, the narrative of the treatment that was to be meted out by them to the Messias when He came.[4] They cannot believe that they could have made such fools of themselves as they actually did and continue to do by attempting to apply the promises of God concerning the world-wide sway of the Mystical Body of Christ to their own nation. This terrible pride is the source of the obstinacy with which they refuse to accept the Supernatural Messias.
1. Cf. Campaigners for Christ, by David Goldstein, p. 30.
2. “The Jews are always and everywhere the tools of their ruling clique: to it they pay heavy indirect taxes, and in return receive help in exploiting the land which harbours them.” (Waters Flowing Eastward, by L. Fry, p. 30).
3. The Jews, First Edition, p. 168.
4. Cf. Isaias, Ch. LIII, 7. 12.
|