© Copyright 2023, T. Stanfill Benns (All emphasis within quotes added by the author)
The operation of error to believe lies
Saint Paul gave us the method of seduction used to implement the operation of error in II Thess. 2: vs. 3-12. In the last days even the elect would be liable to being deceived by the operation of error, which basically would blind them to the truth in such a way that they were unlikely to ever find it again. What makes this seduction possible? It is the one sin that Satan exemplifies over every other — pride. Traditionalist authorities cannot afford to admit they have ever been wrong about anything; that would necessarily diminish their authority and loosen the stranglehold they have on their followers. It would mean that they would have to renounce their own opinions and even perhaps admit they were mistaken concerning the validity or licitity of their ordination/consecration, and of their true perception of the faith. The almost impossibility of this ever happening will be clear to those reading these words, which is why St. Paul taught what he did. It would not be so troubling or so significant if St. Paul himself had not accurately seen 2,000 years ago the power and force those conducting this seduction of the faithful would wield.
All are familiar with George Orwell’s book “Nineteen Eighty-Four” and none can deny that the propaganda tactics described therein have been in place since before the World Wars. Newspeak and doublethink are now passé, but they exist nonetheless. Some call it mind control or brainwashing, but it all comes down to exactly the same thing: Lies held as truth. “The vast majority prefer to err with the mob rather than work out their own convictions…One of the most prolific and baneful sources of error is mass propaganda. By this means men can be so indoctrinated that they can no longer think for themselves or test the objective value of their indoctrination.” This Rev. Cotter, S.J. rightly observed in his work quoted in Pt. 1. He listed propaganda under the heading of “False Authority,” and termed the acceptance of statements on face value, without any investigation, “intellectual idolatry.” The Master Masons Albert Pike and Arthur Waite both discussed the use of political science in directing public opinion in their works. Waite related that the Jewish Kabbala was the original source of ambiguity and deceit, and even was consulted by Nostradamus in writing his prophecies. These prophecies, written so that they could be interpreted in various ways at different times, have served as a reference point for conspirators throughout history.
Once the lay of the land was properly evaluated, then the secret societies knew who and what to target, when to act for best effect and where the application of propaganda was most needed and would be best received. “The object of brainwashing is to create a consensus sufficiently capable of convincing others,” Rev. Saenz-Arriaga quoted Talmeyer in his “The New Montinian Church.” In his 1928 work “Propaganda,” Sigmund Freud’s own nephew, Edward Bernays, explained how brainwashing essentially constitutes an elite class ruling those who are willingly duped by the control and selected dissemination of information. “Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country,” Bernays wrote. “Our minds are molded, our tastes are formed largely by men we have never heard of.” Here is the answer to the apathy we see today in this country, an apathy that long ago crept into the Church and from there into all other non-Catholic denominations. The Illuminati perfected it and the Liberals of the late 19th century modernized it. We trace its history below.
The advent of psychopolitics
The forerunner of this ages-old plan is outlined in documents attributed to the Italian statesman Niccolo Machiavelli, whose works first became available in the 1500s. Machiavelli polled the methods used by various rulers to control their subjects in compiling his work. He concluded that these rulers viewed most of the population as naïve and preoccupied enough to accept lies for truth without even bothering to check out basic facts. Machiavelli and his associates agreed that if and when their subjects no longer accepted these lies willingly, then force should be used to compel them to believe. Machiavelli paints a very somber picture in his work. He revealed that in the early days of the Renaissance period, power-hungry emperors and monarchs advocated the abandonment of all doctrinal and moral considerations to rule by chicanery, betrayal of trust, terror and the concealment of atrocities cloaked in an external show of kindness and compassion for the masses. We see it at work today.
Dante also noted many of these salient facts in his 14th century work “De Monarchia.” This blueprint for despotic rule became the norm following the Reformation, and accounts for the fall of Catholic monarchies. Once again, it was the work of evil Catholics as much as the secret societies that accomplished this devilish goal. More recently, Orwell and science fiction writer Isaac Asimov picked up threads of this psychopolitical/Machiavellian theme. In his “Foundation” trilogy, Asimov describes the use of “psychohistory” as the key force in propelling the masses toward a New Age. He defines this term as: “That branch of mathematics which deals with the reactions of human conglomerates to fixed social and economic stimuli…A further necessary assumption is that the human conglomerate be itself unaware of psychohistoric analysis in order that its reactions be truly random.” (This refers to the “chaos” principal, necessarily Satanic since chaos is diametrically opposed to the order God established for His universe).
In the editorial note to his book “Brain-Washing,” the former Communist Kenneth Goff laid out the course of study he undertook as part of his induction to the Communist Party. The entire book, a training manual actually used by the Communists, is dedicated to creating chaos through manipulating social programs and political processes. The stress resulting from this manipulation will then drive people to nervous distraction and subsequent drug use that can easily be labeled insanity. By repressing the more effective forms of mental health practice that would offer relief, and especially by teaching mental health in schools while targeting and corrupting youth, the need for the warehousing of individuals exhibiting symptoms can be created.
“We were trained in all phases of warfare, both psychological and physical for the destruction of the Capitalistic society and Christian civilization,” Goff wrote. “In one portion of our studies we went fully into the matter of psychopolitics. This was the art of capturing the minds of a nation through brainwashing and fake mental health…If people can be conquered in the absence of war, the end of war will have been achieved…” The manual also related that those who study and understand psychology “become at once a candidate to accept the reasonableness of Communism.” Little wonder that the Church has long held this science suspect, particularly in non-Catholic hands. The ultimate goal of psychopolitics is to produce such a horror of religious “fanaticism” that it will be classified as insanity. “You must work until ‘religion’ is synonymous with ‘insanity,’” Goff said, quoting his Communist instructors. “You must work until the officials of city, county, and state governments will not think twice before they pounce upon religious groups as public enemies.”
The establishment of Homeland Security and the compilation of the Patriot Act following the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 has allowed government officials to make great strides in this direction. Rev. Felix Morlion in his “Apostolate of Public Opinion” proposed a “Catholic” variety of propaganda pandering to Americanist tendencies and political interests in general, and this propaganda included the use of Catholic oriented films. Morlion maintained close ties to those working to destroy the Church and eventually co-authored the 1960s piece in Look Magazine on “How the Jews Changed Catholic Thinking.”
The heartbreaking case of Cardinal Mindszenty
Who can forget the tragic case of Cardinal Mindszenty, seized by the Communists on Dec. 28, 1948, and reduced to an absolute shell of a man. Mindszenty feared the Communists would eventually arrest him and that what had happened to his secretary also would happen to him. This secretary’s mind was destroyed by Communist interrogation, torture and mind control techniques so thoroughly following his arrest that he later betrayed the Cardinal to his enemies. Seeing this, Mindszenty left documents stating that he would never resign his position as Primate and that if he did the Church should know he had been coerced. “‘Somehow,’ wrote US Army intelligence adviser Paul Linebarger, ‘they took his soul apart,’” (British author Dominic Streatfield). The writer goes on to say that Mindszenty confessed to crimes he could never have committed and was uncoordinated and incoherent, “like a sleepwalker” at his trial. His own mother said he was not the same man. But whatever was left of that valiant soul clung to the faith he did retain.
Mindszenty would not be released from prison until 1956. Following the death of Pope Pius XII he only would be tormented further. Paul 6 arranged for his transfer from the U.S. Embassy in Budapest in September, 1971. For a time he lived in Austria. But then Montini requested Mindszenty’s resignation from his Seat as Primate in Hungary, and Mindszenty, deeply offended, refused. In 1973 at the age of 82, Paul 6 stripped him of his title as Primate in Hungary as well as his cardinalatial dignities, and declared his seat in Hungary officially vacated. Yet Mindszenty himself never resigned. Fifteen months later, Cardinal Mindzenty was dead. Thus was the prophecy of Pope Pius XII fulfilled, for when creating Mindszenty a cardinal in February 1946, he told him he would be the first of the 32 cardinals to achieve martyrdom. Not a bloody martyrdom, perhaps, but a horrible martyrdom all the same, a martyrdom of the soul unlike anything seen before in history.
Streatfield notes that Card. Mindszenty, a loyal anti-Fascist and anti-Communist was in line as the successor of Pope Pius XII. Because he was unable to leave Hungary, he could not attend the 1958 conclave. And even had a valid election been possible at that time and he was able to attend, his mind was badly affected by his imprisonment and for this reason he probably could not have been elected. Or despite this, perhaps he was elected, in absentia, and his election was blocked by the powers seeking to install Roncalli; certain facts recently revealed seem to suggest this. Sadly, we will never know. Certainly after Mindszenty’s arrest in 1948 and Pope Pius XII’s encounter with Montini and others in 1953, the pope had no reason to believe that once he was gone, there would be any more valid successors to the papacy; he even states this in one place. And Pius XII tellingly failed to appoint a cardinal camerlengo, in charge of electing the next pope, after he took over the day-to-day affairs of the Vatican from Montini in 1954. This indicates he did not anticipate that a true pope could be elected following his demise.
We have gone to great lengths on this site to explain the deleterious effects today of brainwashing and mind control by Traditionalist and other cults. It was Robert Jay Lifton, who wrote the definitive work on this subject: “Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism,” following the Communist Chinese advent of brainwashing used on prisoners during the Korean War. The methods of these sects and personality cults today are so much more sophisticated and so thoroughly evolved that when the ex-Moonie and cult expert Stephen Hassan met with Lifton in the 1980s, Lifton told Hassan that he no longer was the expert — Hassan was the expert. As Hassan says in his work “Combating Cult Mind Control,” no one can convince a person in the throes of cult mind control that they are indeed operating under the powerful delusion described by St. Paul above. Such mind control is basically the voluntary abandonment of one’s reasoning processes in the belief that another is eminently qualified and even divinely mandated to think for us. Men have become unreasoning and unreasonable, and this, St. Thomas Aquinas and others tell us, is the result of pride.
Pride, disobedience, ingratitude
It all comes down to St. Teresa’s famous definition: “Humility is truth.” Pride was the undoing of Lucifer whose refusal to serve earned him an eternity in Hell. Serving God means obedience to His law and placing our talents and abilities in His service. “Humility is not a denial of good qualities, for being truth it is the admission of all qualities, good and bad. We admit our faults and endeavor to remedy them; we admit our abilities, accept them as a gift of God and use them. If one is absolutely truthful in the estimation of himself, that person is humble. He accepts his good qualities, his abilities and his accomplishments as the work of God. Humility is the root of all the other virtues,” Rev. Ralph S. Pfau explains in his 1957 work, “Sobriety and Beyond,” endorsed by the Holy Office. Pride refuses to allow us to recognize that faced with our own shortcomings and the obligation to do God’s will in all things, we are powerless without His help. We see from St. Thomas Aquinas that pride is very much related to disobedience.
“…Disobedience arises from vainglory,” which is a type of pride. “The first sin of our first parents, which sin was transmitted to all men was not disobedience as such but pride, from which the man proceeded to disobey…It is a greater duty to obey a higher than a lower authority, in sign of which the command of a lower authority is set aside if it be contrary to the command of a higher authority…The higher the person who commands, the more grievous it is to disobey him,” (Summa, Pt. II-II, Q. 105, Art.1 and 2, Rep. Obj. 3). “Indirectly and accidently…pride makes a man despise the Divine law which hinders him from sinning, (Jeremias 2:20; Summa, Pt. II-II, Q. 162, Art.2).
“Knowledge of truth is two-fold. One is purely speculative and pride hinders this indirectly by removing its cause. For the proud mans subjects not his intellect to God, that he may receive the knowledge of truth from Him, according to Matt. 11:25,” which verse, St. Thomas explains, means that God hides things from the proud and reveals them to the humble. Furthermore, proud men will listen to nothing from other men as they should, (Ecclus. 6:34).” St. Thomas continues, “The other knowledge of truth is affective and this is indirectly hindered by pride, because the proud, through delighting in their own excellence, disdain the excellence of truth. Thus Gregory says, (Moral xxiii, loc cit.) that ‘the proud, although certain hidden truths be conveyed to their understanding, cannot realize their sweetness: and if they know of them they cannot relish them.’ Hence it is written (Prov. 11:2), ‘Where humility is, there also is wisdom,’” (Summa, Pt. II-II, Q. 162, Art.3).
Ingratitude and excusing oneself from any wrongdoing are indicators of pride, according to St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and St. Bernard, all quoted by St. Thomas, (Summa, Pt. II-II, Q. 162, Art.4). St. Bernard also lists rebelliousness, along with arrogance and presumption, as three of the 12 degrees of pride. As St. Thomas points out in Article seven, Reply Obj. 4 under this question, quoting the Psalms, ‘…the sin of pride…is the last in those who return to God and the first in those who withdraw from God.’” All of what is stated here can be applied most especially to Traditional and other clergy but also to those who follow them. For St. Thomas points out that pride is the failure to practice humility, “whereby a man has true self esteem. Now pride does not observe this rule of right reason, for [a man] esteems himself greater than he is [owing to] an inordinate desire for his own excellence,” (Q. 162, Art. 2, Reply Obj. 4). Right reason, then, is lacking in those “hirelings” (unlawful/invalid clerics) and false christs, (antipopes who sit in the “chair of God,” pretending to teach in His name) as well as their unreasonable followers. Because these Trad clerics and their “superiors” failed to faithfully observe Can. 1371 to the letter, they clearly demonstrate their rebelliousness, unreasonableness and arrogance.
Canon 1371 governing seminarians states: “Disorderly, incorrigible, or seditious students, and those who because of their character or temperament do not seem suitable candidates for the clerical state, shall be dismissed from the seminary…If a seminarian should be guilty of an offense against good morals or the faith, he shall be summarily discharged.” Following their own will rather than God’s, lax bishops and the rectors of seminaries prior to the false V2 council, and later Traditionalists pretending themselves able to train men for the priesthood, neglected to weed out early on those who were infected with pride. And who can be surprised at this when these seminaries were erected only by violating other canon laws, which reserve such establishment of seminaries to bishops and the pope. Rev. Aloysius Biskupek, S.V.D., addresses the pride that allows these leaders in the book, “On Priesthood.” In this work, he interprets the term “incorrigible” in this canon as those who refuse to recognize and acknowledge their faults, correct them and submit themselves to the judgment of superiors in such matters. And he states that an incorrigible nature arises from pride.
“Incorrigible [means] to know one’s faults and not to correct them despite repeated admonitions and warnings…[This] indicates either lack of will power or pride or failure to grasp the import of priestly responsibility…The candidate who is incorrigible because of pride is not fit for the priesthood [and] …is to be dismissed summarily from the seminary.” Fray Louis of Granada, O.P., known for his faithfulness to Thomistic theology and praised for his ability to explain it to the laity, says concerning pride: “Pride is the mother of all vices, but it particularly engenders…disobedience, arrogance, hypocrisy, obstinacy, discord, curiosity and presumption…Pride often enters stealthily, flattering a man that he is of much worth, telling him that he is discreet, is deserving of a certain office or position, or that he is much better than other persons…,” (“Summa of the Christian Life”). In his classic work “The Heliotropium” on accepting God’s will, Jeremias Drexelius chastises those who are interested only in self; who seek the approval of others and not of God. “If a mitre anywhere wants an owner, there are numbers who offer their head for it; but they do not first hasten to the Hand of Christ…Oftentimes they reach the hands of kings and princes before they run to Christ [when] the Divine Favor and Will should be sought before all things,” (the condemned error of lay investiture, Pope Gregory VII, 1078; DZ 960; Canons 108-109; Can. 147). And what is it that Drexelius understands as God’s will? He quotes St. Cyprian as saying, “ ‘The will of God is what Christ has done and taught.’ It is humility in conduct,” (among several other things he lists). “The will of God is most clearly revealed to us by the law of God and the Church,” and that will is known as God’s signified will.
Conclusion
Traditionalists refuse to serve under the Roman Pontiff, just as Satan told God he would not serve. Their clerics falsely claim to serve as those commissioned by the Holy Ghost when such a commission can be granted validly and licitly only with a papal mandate. They lack formal certitude because they refuse to accept the integral truth taught by the continual magisterium. They therefore can never possess objective truth, which alone is one, without accepting its necessary font — a canonically elected pope possessing unquestionably apostolic succession. Nor can anyone ordained or consecrated since Pope Pius XII’s death in violation of “Vacantis Apostolica Sedis” pretend to possess it when there can be no formal certitude concerning this possession, since Pope Pius XII infallibly forbids any one to violate the present law concerning elections and voids any attempt at such violation. God’s signified will is contained in the Law, and they consistently scorn His will. Given Pius XII’s constitution, the law clearly states that it is currently impossible to validly and canonically elect a pope. Yet incredibly, there is a current effort afoot — AGAIN — to bring about such an invalid election, and it will end no better, and possibly will bring about even worse evils, than other previous attempts. And those presently promoting these efforts were the very same individuals who, years ago, condemned the very possibility that such an election could take place.
So seeing that the manifestation of pride consists in refusal to admit one has sinned, ignoring God’s signified will and continuing in those sins instead, it is obvious that Traditionalists grievously offend the Holy Ghost who assisted the true pontiffs in defining the laws and teachings of the Church; they implicitly deny His very existence as the infallible illuminator of the Roman Pontiff. They refuse to serve God and obey these laws just as Satan told God he would not serve. This obstinacy in the denial of the Holy Ghost, so specific to the original Traditionalists and their descendants today, is cited by St. Thomas in his treatise on disobedience cited below:
“Not every disobedience is a sin against the Holy Ghost, but only that to which obstinacy is added…The sin against the Holy Ghost consists in the contempt of those goods which lead directly to repentance and the remission of sin.” They will not, and out of human respect cannot, turn from their present course because it would injure their pride. God therefore withholds the grace necessary to true repentance from them not because they cannot see, but like the Jews they so ruthlessly condemn, they WILL not see. The tradition Traditionalists embrace is a human tradition, not those traditions defined as divine, apostolic or ecclesiastical in the catechisms. For ecclesiastical traditions can never be counted as such unless sanctioned by law, and the ecclesiastical traditions Traditionalists hold to long ago were abrogated by the 1917 Code and subsequent papal teaching.
The errors of Traditionalism are manifold, and it is no wonder. Papal teaching is the source of formal certitude, which alone is the basis of objective truth, and it is the integral truth of past pontiffs these false clerics dismiss and disobey. If humility itself is truth and obedience is indispensible to humility, then without it, truth cannot exist. And (objective) truth alone, Christ tells us, will free us from the operation of error, to believe lies.
