By Sir Raymond J de Souza, KHS, KM, KofC
The sixth commandment: thou shalt do war to the infidel with neither truce nor mercy, made perfect sense in the days of the Crusades, when Catholic knights waged war in defense of the Holy Catholic Church and Christendom. But today it would cause nervousness among the effeminate men who attend the “Church services” as a matter of habit. Add to this the pacifist mentality which is widespread in Catholic circles today, and we will have a stern opposition to the six commandments of chivalry, almost as much opposition as many have against the sixth commandment of God’s law.
But in order to understand such a manly commandment, we first of all must understand that God Our Lord Himself established a total war between good and evil, between the race of the Woman and the race of the serpent: “Inimicias ponam inter te et Mulierem … et Ipsa conteret caput tuum! “I shall put enmities between you and the Woman; between your race and hers. You shall lie in wait for her heel and she shall crush your head.” (Gen. 3:15)
St Louis de Montfort, the great apostle of Marian devotion in his masterpiece “True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary” explains: “God has never made and formed but one enmity; but it is an irreconcilable one, which shall endure and grow even to the end…it is between Mary, His worthy Mother, and the devil – between the children and the servants of the Blessed Virgin and the children and tools of Lucifer”.
Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the great founder of the Company of Jesus (the word “Company” referred to a military unit) composed the famous Ignatian meditations, one of which is about the unceasing war between the two standards: the standard of Christ and the standard of the devil. And this war will end only at the end of times, when the second coming of Our Lord will take place, in military, chivalric grandeur and magnificence, as Saint John relates: (Apoc. 20):
“And I saw heaven opened: and behold a white horse. And he that sat upon him was called faithful and true: and with justice doth he judge and fight. … And his name is called: THE WORD OF GOD. And the armies that are in heaven followed him on white horses …. And out of his mouth proceeds a sharp two-edged sword, that with it he may strike the nations. And he shall rule them with a rod of iron. And he hath on his garment and on his thigh written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. … And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies, gathered together to make war with him that sat upon the horse and with his army…. [They] were cast alive into the pool of fire burning with brimstone. And the rest were slain by the sword of him that sits upon the horse, which proceeds out of his mouth.”
The whole process of salvation also started with a mighty battle:
“There was a great battle in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought, and his angels. And they prevailed not: neither was their place foundany more in heaven. And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduces the whole world. And he was cast unto the earth: and his angels were thrown down with him.” (Apoc. 12)
Pope John Paul II instructed the young in Rome in 1981 when he said, “Learn to think, speak and act in accordance with evangelical simplicity and clarity: yes, yes; no, no. Learn to call white, white; and black, black. To call good, good; and evil, evil. To call sin, sin, and not to call it liberation or progress, even if fashion or propaganda are opposed to this teaching”.
Yes, history is, therefore, a great crusade, the unceasing, truceless battle between good and evil, order and disorder, obedience and anarchy.
In the First Crusade, the crusaders surrounded Jerusalem, which was occupied by the Turks. The Arabs of Egypt came to offer an alliance with the Christians or war. In the council, one Knight stood up and said, “How can this be possible? How can we have an alliance with Moslems? So, we are going to see the standard of Christ mixed with the standard of the Infidels? And the warriors of Christ fight side by side with the soldiers of Lucifer?” And he concluded, saying to the Arab ambassadors that the Christians in Jerusalem would do war against both the Turks and the Arabs as well.
This kind of medieval attitude would cause a heart attack in the pacifist clergy of today!
When Mohammed II demanded tribute from the Knights of Malta in Rhodes, in their heroic days of old, they replied to him, “We owe the sovereignty of Rhodes only to God and to our swords. Our duty is to be enemies of the Moslems, and not to be tribute-paying vassals.”
In this manner, the knights loved the fight for God, their only concern being that the Turks were not going to Heaven, so Heaven could be very boring, and they would say that God would be very good if He allowed some Turks to go to Heaven, so that, up there, in Heaven, they could combat them for the glory of God… Intransigence and combativity, and not ecumenism and pacifism, were the characteristics of Catholics and of the heroic Knights.
How can Catholic men today fulfill the sixth commandment – do battle against the infidel?
First of all, we must bear in mind that, in our days, “our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places” (Eph 6:12)
Secondly, acquire or increase devotion to Saint Michael the Archangel, bearing in mind that the life of a Catholic man involves the fight against the enemies of Christ, – which necessarily includes the fight against the culture of death (IVF, contraception, abortion, euthanasia, sodomy, transgenderism) especially homosexuality in the Catholic clergy;
Thirdly, by defending the Catholic faith and morals against the cardinals, bishops, priests and lay people who are misleading the faithful, leading them to hell with their wrong and immoral teachings, and exposing them to the public.
The “pilgrimage” of one thousand sodomites in St Peter’s Basilica, with no comment from any cardinal, or even the pope, should encourage all Catholic men to fight the abomination and cowardice in the Holy places!
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