Cardinal Pie of Poitiers Home Page

 

"Jesus Christ is not optional!"

"Pope [St.] Pius X told the students of the French Seminary, Rome, on audience, that he had read and re-read the works of Cardinal Pie, who was Bishop of Poitiers from 1849 to 1880. Other Sovereign Pontiffs, [the Venerable] Pius IX, Leo XIII, Benedict XV, have added their encomiums to those of Pius X. I may say that the great Cardinal's ideas permeate every chapter of this book."

So wrote the redoubtable Holy Ghost priest, Father Denis Fahey, in the preface of his monumental The Mystical Body of Christ and the Reorganization of Society.

The evils of Naturalism


Naturalism is more than a heresy: it is pure undiluted antichristianism. Heresy denies one or more dogmas: Naturalism denies that there are any dogmas or that there can be any.

Heresy alters more or less what God has revealed; Naturalism denies the very existence of revelation. It follows that the inevitable law and the obstinate passion of Naturalism is to dethrone our Lord Jesus Christ and to drive Him from the world.

This will be the task of Antichrist and it is Satan's supreme ambition....

The great obstacle to the salvation of the men of our day, as the Vatican Council (Ed.note: the true Catholic Council of 1870) point out in the first Constitution on Doctrine, what hurls more people into hell nowadays than at any other epoch, is Rationalism or Naturalism..

Naturalism strives with all its might to exclude our Lord, Jesus Christ, our one Master and Savior, from the minds of men as well as from the daily lives and habits of peoples, in order to set up the reign of reason or of nature.

Now, wherever the breath of Naturalism has passed, the very source of Christian life is dried up. Naturalism means complete sterility in regard to salvation and eternal life."

Persevere!

"My brothers, all of you, if you are condemned to see the triumph of evil, never applaud it. Never say to evil: you are good; to decadence: you are progress; to the night: you are light; to death: you are life. Sanctify yourselves in the times wherein God has placed you; bewail the evils and the disorders which God tolerates; oppose them with the energy of your works and your efforts, your life uncontaminated by error, free from being led astray, in such a way that having lived here below, united with the Spirit of the Lord, you will be admitted to be made but one with Him forever and ever: Qui adhaeret Deo unus spiritus est ( cf. I Cor 6:17) .

The Courage of One's Convictions

"Wills are without strength, characters without decision; because intelligence is without light, without conviction. Plans are weak, resolutions uncertain because the mind that conceives them has no clear and decisive views. Through a just judgment of God, the weakening of faith has resulted in the weakening of reason and natural sense. Our era has the reputation of being one of "strong minds". But history will someday judge it to have been the era of weak minds. "Cowardice" is the right word!

When I ask today's wise people what is the biggest plague of present society, the answer everywhere is the deterioration of character, the weakening of souls... But this answer gives rise to another question. Where does this serious symptom of the weakening of character come from? Wouldn't it be true to say that it is the natural and inevitable consequence of the weakening of doctrines, of beliefs and, to use the right word, the weakening of Faith? Courage, after all, is only justified in as much as it serves a conviction. The will is a blind power when it is not enlightened by intelligence. One is not on a firm footing when one walks in darkness or only in twilight. Therefore, if today's man goes forward by groping his way, would it not be, O Lord, that your word is no longer the light which guides our steps, nor lights up our paths?

Our fathers, in all things, looked for guidance in the teaching of the Gospel and the Church; our fathers walked in full daylight. They knew what they wanted, what they repulsed, what they loved, what they hated, and because of that, they were strong in action. As for us, we walk in the dark. We have nothing definite anymore, nothing firm in mind and we are no longer aware of the goal to reach. As a consequence, we are weak and hesitant.

Draw from the pure and flowing sources of Christian faith. Do not be satisfied with these middle-of-the-road doctrines. Will this impoverished, debilitated Christianity ever produce again the vigorous characters and strongly ordered temperaments of former times? No." [Nov. 7, 1859]

This page is the work of Father Paul McDonald.pjm@vaxxine.com.