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British colonial Province of New York and formed circa 1775 in New York City".

3 The motto appeared on red tin hearts sewn to their jackets. 4

The phrase has a certain resonance to it, one that rings out to a Traditional Catholic with a clarity akin to that of the Angelus bell at the high noon of the Faith. We recognize no authority superior to that of God and such is our right, although we acknowledge the God-granted authority of the pope, his prelates and priests in matters of Faith. It is within our right, however, to question that which is not Dogma of the Church when it appears that deviance from Dogma and time-honored Tradition outside the Magisterium is being preached; in fact, it is not only our right but our responsibility to do so, just as it is our right and our responsibility to defend our Faith, our Church and our once- Christian culture and civilization from subversion and invasion by those inimical to them.

Recently, this writer had an instructive conversation with a young (24) Israeli who had shortly before completed her obligatory military service and was touring South America, as do a goodly number of young Israeli veterans. As we made our way along a tributary of the Amazon, she stated her belief that the Jewish people are unsafe living anywhere but Israel and that they have an obligation to do so if they are to consider themselves truly Jewish. She was fully prepared to take arms should the Jewish homeland be threatened in any way by any non-Jewish collective or State. Should we of the now-secularbut- previously-Christian West not learn something from this? Is it not time or perhaps past time to take a stand for God and our right? This writer believes these are rhetorical questions, but recognizes that our present pontiff and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church would be unlikely to agree.

We do not need to wear red tin hearts to demonstrate our convictions, though if we openly display religious symbols we may well in a not-too-distant future find ourselves open to convictions of another sort. Those who display their Christian convictions in certain other nations may find themselves martyred for doing so; in fact, that may occur in the home countries of their Christian ancestors as well while the secular governments of those nations stand idly by.

We as Traditional Catholics stand foursquare behind our God and our right to worship Him as He saw fit to tell us to do, not as others might have us do, perhaps, but as we know we must if we are to be counted among the Faithful.

Our fellow Faithful have stood up to be counted as armed soldiery in Spain shortly before and during the 1936-39 civil war, in Mexico in the time of the Cristeros and in the Vendée of France.

Others fought primarily to defend their Faith in Ireland, in the European wars of religion and in the Crusades. From its beginning, the Faith has been subject to struggle and likely will be so until the Last Day. There will always be those

3 https://infogalactic.com/info/Hearts_of_Oak_ (New_York_militia)#cite_note-Chernow-1; Chernow, Ron, Alexander Hamilton, Penguin Books, Penguin Group, NY, 2005, p. 203.

4 Chernow, op. cit., p. 204.

willing to fight for God and our right.

Catholicism began as a small and persecuted sect, but the Truth of the New Covenant soon spread beyond the borders of Judea to Rome and eventually to all of Europe, creating a new culture and a new civilization to take the place of that created by fallen Rome and fallen Man. The Faith, along with the culture and civilization that were by-products thereof, would eventually spread to all corners of the globe, saving countless souls from damnation while making the Faith the cornerstone of new cultural and civilizational structures in societies that adhered to the tenets of the Faith and the Church. Then, somehow, societies began to abandon the Faith in favor of a secular utopianism that promises an earthly paradise but at best yields a societal purgatory. How did this come to pass?

We all know that while the spirit may be willing, the flesh is weak, and the earthly utopia is meant to appeal to the flesh, but this alone cannot account for the considerable abandonment of the Church and even the Faith by so many, particularly following the ill-fated "reforms" implemented in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Author and professor of sociology and philosophy David Carlin ( The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America [2003]), focusing on the USA, sums it up by stating: "Catholics, in sum, were embracing American culture at precisely the moment when that culture was losing its Christian flavor and taking on a decidedly anti-Christian flavor. Is it any wonder, then, that the Church went into sharp decline?"

5 Carlin points to the dramatic increase of secularism in the USA as the principal suspect: "[T]hey [anti-Christian secularists] comprised a mass movement. Millions were repudiating Christianity by repudiating the ethic of Christianity."

6 He adds: "In this attack on Christianity, the outright secularists were aided and abetted by DM [‘denominational mentality’ 7]

5 Carlin, David, "The Sudden Decline of the Catholic Church in America", The Catholic Social Science Review 10 (205), p. 116. (http://www.

catholicsocialscientists.org/CSSR/Archival/2005/ Carlin_107-116.pdf).

6 Ibid, p. 115.

7 N.B. "DM Catholics believe, not in Catholicism,

Christians, including DM Catholics, in other words, by liberal Christians, for the DM Christian and the liberal Christian are the same thing."

8 It requires no great leap of the imagination to extrapolate these observations to encompass the West in general.

In all likelihood, much of what is written in Prof. Carlin’s article (and likely his books as well) is familiar territory, but the full article is highly recommended reading. If we are to defend our God and His right as well as our own, it merits reemphasizing that our principal opposition comes from the secularists who "came to control what may be called the four great ‘command posts’ of American culture: the national press, the entertainment industry, the elite

which is a very specific thing, but in what may be called "generic Christianity." That is, they believe that what is important about Christian faith and morals are those things that all Christians hold in common…" ( Ibid, p. 112).

8 Ibid, p. 115.

colleges and universities, and the higher ranks of the bench and the bar."

9 It is all well and good to recognize this and repeat it often, but if we are to mount as successful an opposition to them as they have mounted to us, we must learn to infiltrate and subvert their secularist agenda as they have so successfully done with respect to the Catholic Church and Western culture and civilization in general. Then too, there remains the final stronghold of the secularists: their usurpation of the financial sovereignty of the West, the controlling mechanism that has allowed them to seize the cultural "command posts" referred to above.

The secular wolf is no longer at the door in the West: he is seated at the head of the table and is eating everyone’s lunch while those he hypnotized with those big eyes of his remain complacent and content with what scraps he allows them to consume. Behind the wolf, of course, lurks the all-devouring Dragon awaiting the lost and ever-less-tended sheep whose souls make fine fare for an endless banquet. Where, oh Lord, is the woodsman whose task it is to slay the wolf, where is St. George of Lydda, the

9 Ibid, p. 116.

Dragon-slayer? The saint, patron of soldiers, wears the Cross emblazoned on his shield and in some representations on his armor. This writer has since 1982 worn the Cross of Santiago (also red) as a lapel pin after his first visit to Santiago de Compostela and much prefers it to a tin heart.

Santiago (St. James the Greater, patron saint of Spain), after all, was credited with a miraculous intervention that played a key part in the Reconquista, the Catholic re-conquest of Spain after centuries of Muslim occupation. St.

James’s distinctive red cross seems as fitting a symbol as that of the Cross of St. George to display one’s intention to stand as a soldier of our God and our right to restore Christ the King upon His throne in the West. It is also worthy of note that the millennial Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James) is among the most important Catholic pilgrimage routes and was in 1987 chosen by the Council of Europe to be the first European Cultural Route; it has also been designated a World Heritage site by UNESCO as well as a destination for Remnant pilgrims participating in the annual pilgrimage to Chartres.

Whatever symbol we choose to display, increasing militancy seems to be called for, given that papal calls for a "reconquest" of societal "territory" lost are not likely to be forthcoming in the foreseeable future. Said militancy cannot be restricted to symbols displayed by individuals; it requires unity and a willingness to sacrifice for the sake of our cause. We are greatly outnumbered and cannot expect support even from many of our coreligionists, religious or lay. We find ourselves caught between the Rock of St. Peter and the hard place of obedience to authority even when it is known that such obedience is detrimental to the defense of the Faith.

"What is to be done" asked Lenin in his infamous 1902 political pamphlet that served as a preview of what would be done as the secularists gained the ascendency they presently enjoy.

Traditional Catholics must ask this same question and set about answering it with action in the spheres of the four "command posts" cited above while exposing once and for all the truth about the "command and control" center itself: the unconstitutional and anti-Catholic US Federal Reserve System and allied central banks (BIS, ECB, etc.) that finance the "command posts" and allied enemies of Christendom with nonasset- backed debt. What is to be done about them is likely beyond the scope of Catholic action now, but we must pray that God decides to do what we seemingly cannot.

People of the Jewish faith have their own confessional state as do Sunni and Shiite Muslims, and will fight to protect them, but Christians no longer do whereas once the West was ours. Will we have the determination to stand for our God and our right as the non-Western religions do for theirs?

Begin with this, as Michael Matt urged Remnant readers in his 13 April 2017 post on the Remnant website: "Never hesitate to tell the world: I am a Christian. I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I am a Catholic." ■

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Saint George and the Dragon bronze sculpture in historical Nikolaiviertel, Berlin