<\/p>\n
+The Epiphany+<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n We hear much these days about political conservatives and their connections to white supremacy ideology, also known as Christian Identity or British Israel (BI). British Israel is the belief that the people of the British Isles, genetically, racially and linguistically are the descendants of the 10 lost tribes of Israel. In other words, the people of Great Britain (and by way of descent, the U.S.) have become the \u201cnew Israel,\u201d or chosen people and are basically blood<\/em> descendants also of the Davidic line. Many believe that the rulers of England are blood relations of King David, and that the throne on which the English kings are consecrated sits over the same stone used to consecrate the Israelite kings. Christian Identity beliefs in America later evolved from this theory.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n While politicians and Christian clerics deny white supremacy is linked to this belief, it may well be true to an extent few would be willing to believe. Certainly not all Christian Conservatives embrace this belief system. But many of those who do have gone to great lengths to conceal their true beliefs in order to pass as everyday Christians. Sadly, this applies to Traditionalists every bit as much as it does to Protestants. And In fact, the name Traditionalists chose for themselves long ago itself may be a clue to who and what they truly are.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But first, a brief personal history of my experience with white supremacy as a Traditionalist. The very first (and only) Trad group I joined, the Orthodox Roman Catholic Movement, had its own branch, so to speak, which promoted these White Supremacist beliefs. I handled mail for a Traditionalist ORCM \u201cpriest,\u201d Dan Jones, from 1980 until 1982, and also wrote for his newsletter, Sangre de Cristo Newsnotes<\/em>. Anyone who subscribed to that newsletter into the 1990s knows Jones was advocating for and posting advertisements from (Protestant) Christian Identity groups and individuals, and he received mail criticizing him for this. He also printed a long series promoting the \u201cSiri\u201d theory, beginning in the late 1980\u2019s. Certain members of the Siri group also promoted British Israel.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I left Jones\u2019 group in 1982, after a showdown with him over an article he had instructed me to write for his newsletter, sympathetic to Identity beliefs. I pulled the article before it went into print and for this and other disturbing reasons, friends and I left Jones at about the same time. The next group I would become involved with also espoused Identity-related and other Gnostic beliefs, and after nine months I left them as well. I would run into yet another Trad group in the early 2000s that promoted British Israel (synonymous with Christian Identity), and by then I understood this belief was somehow intertwined with the Traditionalist movement, so I quickly rejected the ideas presented in their literature.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This tendency in Traditionalism had been evident from the beginning, following the publication of the book ghostwritten by a fellow Mexican for the Mexican dissident priest Rev. Joaquin Saenz-Arriaga in the early 1960s (The Plot Against the Church<\/em>). It was Saenz who helped establish the ORCM in the U.S. He also was patronized by the publication Veritas<\/em>, which was notorious for its anti-Semitic bias. This periodical, published every other month, was quite popular among Traditionalists. It seems that for the most part, then, Traditionalists seemed to willingly assimilate Identity teaching \u2014 at least insofar as they blamed the Jews for dismantling their Church \u2014 into their own brand of Catholic belief.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But that belief contradicts Catholic teaching. In his encyclical Mit Brenunder Sorge<\/em>, written in 1937 shortly before the beginning of World War II in Europe, Pope Pius XI wrote: \u201cWhoever exalts race, or the people, or the state, or a particular form of state, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the community… above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God… He is far from the true faith in God.\u201d In a later address to Belgian pilgrims on Sept. 6, 1938, Pius XI said: \u201cAbraham is called our patriarch, our ancestor. Through Christ and in Christ we are the spiritual<\/em> descendants of Abraham… No, it is not possible for Christians to take part in anti-Semitism… [For] Spiritually, we are Semites.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Let\u2019s then compare the beliefs of \u201cChristian\u201d Identity, defined by Pope Pius XI as a contradiction in terms, with his teaching on this subject. Christian Identity began as British Israel. One source quotes John Henry Cardinal Newman as commenting that he became a Catholic precisely because the BI philosophy had totally taken over the Anglican church! This tells us there is no affinity between Catholic belief and BI\/ \u201dChristian\u201d Identity. The earliest book on BI appeared in England in 1590 and another work was published there in 1649.They hold the white race as the only race chosen by God to rule the nations and by and large have always discriminated against people of color.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Ku Klux Klan has been associated with Identity beliefs. These proliferated in America in the 20th century, and were promulgated by Henry Ford, Fr. Charles Coughlin and others. Fr. Coughlin was asked by the Vatican to stop preaching BI on the radio in the 1930s by none other than Pius XII, then acting as Pius XI\u2019s cardinal Secretary of State. He personally came to the U.S. to speak to Coughlin. Some claim the deal Pius XII cut with Coughlin was entirely political, but in reality it reflected everything later taught doctrinally by Pius XI in Mit Brenunder Sorge<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pius XI forbade Catholics to exalt any one race or people over the other. That means Identity groups could not teach that they alone were destined to rule over other races based on their \u201cdivine\u201d Davidic bloodline, or any other pagan ideal of racial supremacy (some claim \u201cAtlantean\u201d descent and its superior technological knowledge, reminiscent of Sir Francis Bacon\u2019s work). Pius XI also condemns the idolatry of a particular form of state or government, (National Socialism, or for that matter what we see today as the positive idolatry of democracy as the only acceptable form of government, a concept rejected by the Church). And finally he condemns anti-Semitism outright in his radio address to the Belgians. He then goes on to announce that it is Catholics, (not Protestant Identity groups) who are descended from the Israelites and explains that such a descendance is not in the physical or any other sense but is strictly spiritual. The Jews were the physical descendants and Catholics are the spiritual descendants, encompassing both Old and New Testaments. Christ spiritualized everything, fulfilling all foretold regarding His birth, life and death in the Old Testament. Holy Scripture tells us to \u201cavoid foolish questions and genealogies and contentions and strivings about the law\u201d (Titus 3:9).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It appears there may have been (and most likely still is) a so-called \u201cCatholic\u201d secret society known as the Priory of Sion which Marcel Lefebvre and other clerics belonged to that embraced a philosophy similar to Identity. Lefebvre\u2019s various religious establishments went by the name of \u201cpriories.\u201d He is said to have resigned from the Priory in 1981. This society may have promoted the belief that certain members of the Catholic clergy are descended from Christ Himself and Mary Magdalene, reviving the old Gnostic heresy that Christ somehow did not die during His Crucifixion and escaped with Mary Magdalene to France, or some other location, there to father children. Another version of this blasphemous heresy would have the clergy and faithful descended from the family of Our Lady pre-eminent by blood in the Church, a heresy proposed by a faction of the Judaizers which was condemned in the early centuries by Pope St. Sylvester. This heresy also involved the descendants of Jesus\u2019 family, who claimed that Jerusalem, not Rome was the intended center of Christianity.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Regardless of what any of these revolting beliefs might be, we know that no one could possibly adopt them and remain Catholic. But apparently, this has not stopped Traditionalists from joining forces with Identity groups and thus automatically resigning any Church membership they may have once possessed. That this occurred either before, or at the very establishment of Traditionalism is demonstrated by the name \u2018Traditionalist\u2019 itself, as we have commented in other places. The name was used to lure dissident Catholics unhappy with Vatican 2, who believed Tradition referred to the preservation of the Latin Mass and the supposed continuation of the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n