The Prophetic Pope Pius XI: Propaganda and the Rise of Communism (Divini Redemptoris)
Matthew Bellisario O.P. 2020
Fatima and the Consecration
If there is anything more clear now in the Church and the world is that the acceptance of Communism is near universal, or at least to the point where the majority of those in power and their useful idiots have taken to it. Our Lady warned at Fatima that if Russia was not consecrated by name by the pope in union with all of the bishops that there would be severe consequences to pay. “If My commands are not heeded, Russia will spread her errors throughout the world, raising up wars and persecutions against the Church, the good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated.” As we know the popes from the request in 1927 until arguably 1984 did not heed Our Lady's request. The list includes Pius XI (1922-1939), Pius XII (1939-1958), John XXIII (1958-1963), Paul VI (1963-1978), and John Paul I (1978-1978).
In 1984 John Paul II attempted to consecrate Russia by name but failed to specifically name Russia and instead consecrated the world to Our Lady in union with all of the bishops. This is a highly controversial topic for Catholics, many claiming that the consecration was accepted by Our Lady and many claiming it was not. However, in my eyes, it makes no real difference at his point because if it was accepted by Our Lady as it was done by John Paul II on March 25, 1984, it was done too late! This is what Our Lady said to Sister Lucia about these popes who refused to listen: “They did not want to pay attention to my request. Like the king of France, they will be sorry, but it will be too late. Russia will already have spread its errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The Holy Father will have much to suffer!" So, if it was not accepted as it was done in 1984 then we are reaping those consequences, and if it was done, it was too late anyway! Either way, we are going to pay a serious price for not heeding Our Lady.
The Current Corona Lockdown
So here we are, folks, living under lockdown in 2020 in fear of the corona-virus also called Covid-19. Thus far it seems that this is not even close to being the pandemic it was cracked up to be. Yet, the entire Western Civilization has locked itself indoors even to the point of the Church largely taking the Sacraments away from the faithful. Who would have thought that in only a matter of a few days the public celebration of Mass could be taken away from the faithful across the majority of the world? Yet, here we are. How do the errors of Russia pertain to all of this? It is quite simple, those who control the world banking system have used Communism to take away freedom from the world and are now intending to create a global economic alliance to control not only Western Civilization but the entire world. You have only to look at the globalists and what they have been trying to do for decades now. Watch this video by Michael Matt to get just a glimpse of how they are working us.
Jeffrey Sachs has made it clear that he sees the United States as the final threat to this worldwide global economic alliance. While we are not perfect in the US, and we have largely succumbed to materialism, obviously Communism and the globalist cabal is not the answer. Yet, Sachs at the Vatican has targeted the US in particular as the enemy! Check out this article on the National Catholic Register by Edward Pentin. Is there not something wrong with fantasy land folks? While Pope Francis does see the problem with unbridled materialism, to me, he seems to fail to see the dangers of its polar opposite.
The Wisdom of Divini Redemptoris
Now on to Pope Pius XI, who although neglected to consecrate Russia, prophetically wrote about the dangers and operation of Communism in the world. Given in Rome, at St. Peter's, on the feast of St. Joseph, patron of the universal Church, on March 19th, 1937, Pope Pius XI released a prophetic encyclical called Divini Redemptoris, on Atheistic Communism. I recommend that you take the time to read the entire encyclical for yourself and then ask the question as to why the current pontificate says nothing about these dangers and in fact seems to promote those who support it. Keep in mind when reading the document that the Church here also sees the dangers of defrauding workers of their wages which can occur under more than just Communist rule. Let me explain.
While Communism is the focus of the document, I believe we can also see that we in West have sold our souls under the guise of the freedom of unbridled capitalism which I believe has made it possible for Communism to flourish. Think about it. How long are people going to work 60 or 70 hour work weeks to put food on the table, have a nice big house in the suburbs, with two shiny new cars in the driveway, three laptop computers, three widescreen TVs and any kind of decadent food that they want at any time of the day or night? This also all comes at the expense of our families, our freedom, and ultimately our souls! This is why abortion has flourished under this materialism! While Communism takes away freedom by the tyranny of godless men, our own greed under the pressure of unbridled materialism has also made us slaves! The polarized opposite has opened us up to Communism. The fact is this, without God, without Christ, we will become slaves to something other than God at one end of the spectrum or the other! There is no way to get around this fact. So we find ourselves now on the brink of a global Communist lockdown. What are we to think about it? This encyclical should give us some food for thought.
Below I have posted a small part of the encyclical spanning from paragraph 16 through 21, to whet your appetite. How many people are now blindly accepting the Communist mindset that is seeking to take every freedom imaginable away from us, including the Church and the Sacraments? It is alarming indeed! This Communist infection has made slow and steady progress for over 100 years now while all the while we in the West have thought we have been free when in fact, we have been slowly working towards our own enslavement. We have opened ourselves up to this without most of us even realizing it! I have bolded the text below which I found to be profoundly disturbing for our time. Remember, this was written in 1937! Why do we not see any documents coming out like this now from Pope Francis when the situation is now a hundredfold worse? God help us...
Taken from Divini Redemptoris, 1937.
16. If we would explain the blind acceptance of Communism by so many thousands of workmen, we must remember that the way had been already prepared for it by the religious and moral destitution in which wage-earners had been left by liberal economics. Even on Sundays and holy days, labor-shifts were given no time to attend to their essential religious duties. No one thought of building churches within convenient distance of factories, nor of facilitating the work of the priest. On the contrary, laicism was actively and persistently promoted, with the result that we are now reaping the fruits of the errors so often denounced by Our Predecessors and by Ourselves. It can surprise no one that the Communistic fallacy should be spreading in a world already to a large extent de-Christianized.
17. There is another explanation for the rapid diffusion of the Communistic ideas now seeping into every nation, great and small, advanced and backward, so that no corner of the earth is free from them. This explanation is to be found in a propaganda so truly diabolical that the world has perhaps never witnessed its like before. It is directed from one common center. It is shrewdly adapted to the varying conditions of diverse peoples. It has at its disposal great financial resources, gigantic organizations, international congresses, and countless trained workers. It makes use of pamphlets and reviews, of cinema, theater and radio, of schools and even universities. Little by little it penetrates into all classes of the people and even reaches the better-minded groups of the community, with the result that few are aware of the poison which increasingly pervades their minds and hearts.
18. A third powerful factor in the diffusion of Communism is the conspiracy of silence on the part of a large section of the non-Catholic press of the world. We say conspiracy, because it is impossible otherwise to explain how a press usually so eager to exploit even the little daily incidents of life has been able to remain silent for so long about the horrors perpetrated in Russia, in Mexico and even in a great part of Spain; and that it should have relatively so little to say concerning a world organization as vast as Russian Communism. This silence is due in part to shortsighted political policy, and is favored by various occult forces which for a long time have been working for the overthrow of the Christian Social Order.
19. Meanwhile the sorry effects of this propaganda are before our eyes. Where Communism has been able to assert its power - and here We are thinking with special affection of the people of Russia and Mexico - it has striven by every possible means, as its champions openly boast, to destroy Christian civilization and the Christian religion by banishing every remembrance of them from the hearts of men, especially of the young. Bishops and priests were exiled, condemned to forced labor, shot and done to death in inhuman fashion; laymen suspected of defending their religion were vexed, persecuted, dragged off to trial and thrown into prison.
20. Even where the scourge of Communism has not yet had time enough to exercise to the full its logical effects, as witness Our beloved Spain, it has, alas, found compensation in the fiercer violence of its attack. Not only this or that church or isolated monastery was sacked, but as far as possible every church and every monastery was destroyed. Every vestige of the Christian religion was eradicated, even though intimately linked with the rarest monuments of art and science. The fury of Communism has not confined itself to the indiscriminate slaughter of Bishops, of thousands of priests and religious of both sexes; it searches out above all those who have been devoting their lives to the welfare of the working classes and the poor. But the majority of its victims have been laymen of all conditions and classes. Even up to the present moment, masses of them are slain almost daily for no other offense than the fact that they are good Christians or at least opposed to atheistic Communism. And this fearful destruction has been carried out with a hatred and a savage barbarity one would not have believed possible in our age. No man of good sense, nor any statesman conscious of his responsibility can fail to shudder at the thought that what is happening today in Spain may perhaps be repeated tomorrow in other civilized countries.
21. Nor can it be said that these atrocities are a transitory phenomenon, the usual accompaniment of all great revolutions, the isolated excesses common to every war. No, they are the natural fruit of a system which lacks all inner restraint. Some restraint is necessary for man considered either as an individual or in society. Even the barbaric peoples had this inner check in the natural law written by God in the heart of every man. And where this natural law was held in higher esteem, ancient nations rose to a grandeur that still fascinates - more than it should - certain superficial students of human history. But tear the very idea of God from the hearts of men, and they are necessarily urged by their passions to the most atrocious barbarity.
22. This, unfortunately, is what we now behold. For the first time in history we are witnessing a struggle, cold-blooded in purpose and mapped out to the least detail, between man and "all that is called God."[9] Communism is by its nature anti-religious. It considers religion as "the opiate of the people" because the principles of religion which speak of a life beyond the grave dissuade the proletariat from the dream of a Soviet paradise which is of this world.
Matthew Bellisario O.P. 2020
Fatima and the Consecration
If there is anything more clear now in the Church and the world is that the acceptance of Communism is near universal, or at least to the point where the majority of those in power and their useful idiots have taken to it. Our Lady warned at Fatima that if Russia was not consecrated by name by the pope in union with all of the bishops that there would be severe consequences to pay. “If My commands are not heeded, Russia will spread her errors throughout the world, raising up wars and persecutions against the Church, the good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated.” As we know the popes from the request in 1927 until arguably 1984 did not heed Our Lady's request. The list includes Pius XI (1922-1939), Pius XII (1939-1958), John XXIII (1958-1963), Paul VI (1963-1978), and John Paul I (1978-1978).
In 1984 John Paul II attempted to consecrate Russia by name but failed to specifically name Russia and instead consecrated the world to Our Lady in union with all of the bishops. This is a highly controversial topic for Catholics, many claiming that the consecration was accepted by Our Lady and many claiming it was not. However, in my eyes, it makes no real difference at his point because if it was accepted by Our Lady as it was done by John Paul II on March 25, 1984, it was done too late! This is what Our Lady said to Sister Lucia about these popes who refused to listen: “They did not want to pay attention to my request. Like the king of France, they will be sorry, but it will be too late. Russia will already have spread its errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The Holy Father will have much to suffer!" So, if it was not accepted as it was done in 1984 then we are reaping those consequences, and if it was done, it was too late anyway! Either way, we are going to pay a serious price for not heeding Our Lady.
The Current Corona Lockdown
So here we are, folks, living under lockdown in 2020 in fear of the corona-virus also called Covid-19. Thus far it seems that this is not even close to being the pandemic it was cracked up to be. Yet, the entire Western Civilization has locked itself indoors even to the point of the Church largely taking the Sacraments away from the faithful. Who would have thought that in only a matter of a few days the public celebration of Mass could be taken away from the faithful across the majority of the world? Yet, here we are. How do the errors of Russia pertain to all of this? It is quite simple, those who control the world banking system have used Communism to take away freedom from the world and are now intending to create a global economic alliance to control not only Western Civilization but the entire world. You have only to look at the globalists and what they have been trying to do for decades now. Watch this video by Michael Matt to get just a glimpse of how they are working us.
Jeffrey Sachs has made it clear that he sees the United States as the final threat to this worldwide global economic alliance. While we are not perfect in the US, and we have largely succumbed to materialism, obviously Communism and the globalist cabal is not the answer. Yet, Sachs at the Vatican has targeted the US in particular as the enemy! Check out this article on the National Catholic Register by Edward Pentin. Is there not something wrong with fantasy land folks? While Pope Francis does see the problem with unbridled materialism, to me, he seems to fail to see the dangers of its polar opposite.
The Wisdom of Divini Redemptoris
Now on to Pope Pius XI, who although neglected to consecrate Russia, prophetically wrote about the dangers and operation of Communism in the world. Given in Rome, at St. Peter's, on the feast of St. Joseph, patron of the universal Church, on March 19th, 1937, Pope Pius XI released a prophetic encyclical called Divini Redemptoris, on Atheistic Communism. I recommend that you take the time to read the entire encyclical for yourself and then ask the question as to why the current pontificate says nothing about these dangers and in fact seems to promote those who support it. Keep in mind when reading the document that the Church here also sees the dangers of defrauding workers of their wages which can occur under more than just Communist rule. Let me explain.
While Communism is the focus of the document, I believe we can also see that we in West have sold our souls under the guise of the freedom of unbridled capitalism which I believe has made it possible for Communism to flourish. Think about it. How long are people going to work 60 or 70 hour work weeks to put food on the table, have a nice big house in the suburbs, with two shiny new cars in the driveway, three laptop computers, three widescreen TVs and any kind of decadent food that they want at any time of the day or night? This also all comes at the expense of our families, our freedom, and ultimately our souls! This is why abortion has flourished under this materialism! While Communism takes away freedom by the tyranny of godless men, our own greed under the pressure of unbridled materialism has also made us slaves! The polarized opposite has opened us up to Communism. The fact is this, without God, without Christ, we will become slaves to something other than God at one end of the spectrum or the other! There is no way to get around this fact. So we find ourselves now on the brink of a global Communist lockdown. What are we to think about it? This encyclical should give us some food for thought.
Below I have posted a small part of the encyclical spanning from paragraph 16 through 21, to whet your appetite. How many people are now blindly accepting the Communist mindset that is seeking to take every freedom imaginable away from us, including the Church and the Sacraments? It is alarming indeed! This Communist infection has made slow and steady progress for over 100 years now while all the while we in the West have thought we have been free when in fact, we have been slowly working towards our own enslavement. We have opened ourselves up to this without most of us even realizing it! I have bolded the text below which I found to be profoundly disturbing for our time. Remember, this was written in 1937! Why do we not see any documents coming out like this now from Pope Francis when the situation is now a hundredfold worse? God help us...
Taken from Divini Redemptoris, 1937.
16. If we would explain the blind acceptance of Communism by so many thousands of workmen, we must remember that the way had been already prepared for it by the religious and moral destitution in which wage-earners had been left by liberal economics. Even on Sundays and holy days, labor-shifts were given no time to attend to their essential religious duties. No one thought of building churches within convenient distance of factories, nor of facilitating the work of the priest. On the contrary, laicism was actively and persistently promoted, with the result that we are now reaping the fruits of the errors so often denounced by Our Predecessors and by Ourselves. It can surprise no one that the Communistic fallacy should be spreading in a world already to a large extent de-Christianized.
17. There is another explanation for the rapid diffusion of the Communistic ideas now seeping into every nation, great and small, advanced and backward, so that no corner of the earth is free from them. This explanation is to be found in a propaganda so truly diabolical that the world has perhaps never witnessed its like before. It is directed from one common center. It is shrewdly adapted to the varying conditions of diverse peoples. It has at its disposal great financial resources, gigantic organizations, international congresses, and countless trained workers. It makes use of pamphlets and reviews, of cinema, theater and radio, of schools and even universities. Little by little it penetrates into all classes of the people and even reaches the better-minded groups of the community, with the result that few are aware of the poison which increasingly pervades their minds and hearts.
18. A third powerful factor in the diffusion of Communism is the conspiracy of silence on the part of a large section of the non-Catholic press of the world. We say conspiracy, because it is impossible otherwise to explain how a press usually so eager to exploit even the little daily incidents of life has been able to remain silent for so long about the horrors perpetrated in Russia, in Mexico and even in a great part of Spain; and that it should have relatively so little to say concerning a world organization as vast as Russian Communism. This silence is due in part to shortsighted political policy, and is favored by various occult forces which for a long time have been working for the overthrow of the Christian Social Order.
19. Meanwhile the sorry effects of this propaganda are before our eyes. Where Communism has been able to assert its power - and here We are thinking with special affection of the people of Russia and Mexico - it has striven by every possible means, as its champions openly boast, to destroy Christian civilization and the Christian religion by banishing every remembrance of them from the hearts of men, especially of the young. Bishops and priests were exiled, condemned to forced labor, shot and done to death in inhuman fashion; laymen suspected of defending their religion were vexed, persecuted, dragged off to trial and thrown into prison.
20. Even where the scourge of Communism has not yet had time enough to exercise to the full its logical effects, as witness Our beloved Spain, it has, alas, found compensation in the fiercer violence of its attack. Not only this or that church or isolated monastery was sacked, but as far as possible every church and every monastery was destroyed. Every vestige of the Christian religion was eradicated, even though intimately linked with the rarest monuments of art and science. The fury of Communism has not confined itself to the indiscriminate slaughter of Bishops, of thousands of priests and religious of both sexes; it searches out above all those who have been devoting their lives to the welfare of the working classes and the poor. But the majority of its victims have been laymen of all conditions and classes. Even up to the present moment, masses of them are slain almost daily for no other offense than the fact that they are good Christians or at least opposed to atheistic Communism. And this fearful destruction has been carried out with a hatred and a savage barbarity one would not have believed possible in our age. No man of good sense, nor any statesman conscious of his responsibility can fail to shudder at the thought that what is happening today in Spain may perhaps be repeated tomorrow in other civilized countries.
21. Nor can it be said that these atrocities are a transitory phenomenon, the usual accompaniment of all great revolutions, the isolated excesses common to every war. No, they are the natural fruit of a system which lacks all inner restraint. Some restraint is necessary for man considered either as an individual or in society. Even the barbaric peoples had this inner check in the natural law written by God in the heart of every man. And where this natural law was held in higher esteem, ancient nations rose to a grandeur that still fascinates - more than it should - certain superficial students of human history. But tear the very idea of God from the hearts of men, and they are necessarily urged by their passions to the most atrocious barbarity.
22. This, unfortunately, is what we now behold. For the first time in history we are witnessing a struggle, cold-blooded in purpose and mapped out to the least detail, between man and "all that is called God."[9] Communism is by its nature anti-religious. It considers religion as "the opiate of the people" because the principles of religion which speak of a life beyond the grave dissuade the proletariat from the dream of a Soviet paradise which is of this world.
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