Roberto de Mattei
Corrispondenza Romana
April 15, 2020
The
international scenario in the spring of 2020 is new, unexpected, and dramatic.
Confusion dominates because no one is able to truly say exactly what has
happened: where the coronavirus came from, when it will end, and how it should
be confronted.
What is
certain, however, is that against this background, two cities continue to fight
in history, the Civitas Dei and the Civitas Diabuli: their aim is to
annihilate each other. They are the two cities that Saint Augustine speaks of: “One is the society of devoted men, the
other of rebels, each one has its own angels – in the first city the love of
God is superior, and in the other the love of self” (De Civitate Dei, lib. XIV, c. 13,1).
This
mortal battle was evoked with efficacious words by Pius XII in his discourse to
the men of Catholic Action on October 12, 1952. The Pope affirmed that the
world was threatened by an enemy much worse than the fifth century enemy Attila
the Hun, “the scourge of God.” “Oh, do not ask us who the 'enemy' is or what
clothes he wears. He is found above all in everyone’s midst; he knows how to be
violent and subtle. In these last few centuries he has tried to create
intellectual, moral, and social desegregation of the unity of the mysterious
organism of Christ. He wanted nature without grace; reason without faith;
freedom without authority; and sometimes authority without freedom. He is an 'enemy' who has become ever more concrete, with a ruthlessness that still
leaves people astonished: Christ yes, Church no. Then: God yes, Christ no. And
finally his full cry: God is dead; and even: God never existed. And behold the
attempt to structure the world on foundations that we do not hesitate to point
out as the principal things responsible for the threat that is incumbent on
humanity: an economy without God, a law without God, a political system without
God.”
The
school of Counter-Revolutionary thought gave this school the name of
Revolution, referring to the teaching of the popes: a historical process
lasting over many centuries that has as its goal the destruction of the Church
and Christian civilization. The Revolution has its agents all of the secret
forces that work in both a public and hidden manner for this end. The
Counter-Revolutionaries are those who oppose themselves against this proces of
dissolution and who fight for the restoration of Christian civilization, the
only civilization worthy of the name, as Saint Pius X recalls (Encyclical
Letter Il fermo proposito, June 11,
1905).
The clash
between revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries continues in the age of the
Coronavirus. It is logical that each of these seeks to draw out the maximum
advantage from the new situation. The existence of disturbing revolutionary
maneuvers seeking to profit from the events does not however mean that these
forces created the situation in which we find ourselves, in which they control
and direct it. The representatives of the most diverse governments, from China
to the United States, from Great Britain to Germany, from Hungary to Italy,
have imposed on their nations the same health measures, such as quarantine,
which some of them initially mistrusted. Would these political leaders really allow
themselves to be dominated by a health dictatorship imposed on them by
virologists? But the virologists in turn, who at the beginning were divided
because some of them considered the coronavirus only as a “bad influenza,” were
assaulted by reality and today are all in agreement on the necessity of more
drastic measures in order to contain the virus. The truth is that medical
science has revealed itself as being incapable of eradicating the virus. The
choice to impose quarantine, the same choice that has been made for millennia
in the face of a grave epidemic, is born from common sense, not from their
specific medical competence.
The
problem naturally is not only the many health concerns but also the economic
and social consequences that the virus can have in our interconnected society.
But the solution to these sorts of problems that are getting worse throughout
the world belongs to politicians, not doctors. And if the international
political class hides behind the screen of health officials in order to make
its decisions, that is because of the inadequacy of those who govern the world
today. The political failure parallels the health failure. How can we forget
that the supreme international health authority, the World Health Organization,
announced thirty years ago “a world
without epidemics” thanks to its project called “Health for everyone before the year 2000,” with the consequence
that in many countries the funds dedicated to health were cut or dedicated
primarily to rare diseases? The director of the WHO, Tedros
Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is politically close to communist China, went to Beijing
on January 28, 2020, and after meeting with President Xi Jinping told the world
that everything in Wuhan was under control, minimizing the extent of the
catastrophe. Only after many, many hesitations did the WHO acknowledge the
reality while continuing to lie about the number of people infected and the
number of deaths caused by it, which were certainly not overestimated but
rather were underestimated.
In addition to the economic and social problems, there are the equally
serious psychological and moral problems that are a result of a prolonged
lock-down and the radical change of life that has been imposed by the
coronavirus. But here the last word rests not so much with doctors and
politicians as with priests, bishops, and finally the supreme pastor of the
universal Church. And yet the image that Pope Francis gave during the Easter
Triduum was that of a man who is downcast and depressed, unable to confront the
catastrophe with the spiritual weapons at his disposal. The same thing may be
said about the majority of bishops. The class of ecclesiastical leaders, who
are devoid of serious theological studies or any authentic spiritual life, have
shown themselves to be just as inadequate as the political class in guiding its
flock through the darkness of the present time.
What should counter-revolutionaries do in this situation – those who are
faithful to Tradition, zealous Catholics who are full of the apostolic spirit?
What should their strategy be in the face of the maneuvers of the forces of
darkness?
First of all, they ought to show that a world is collapsing, the
globalized world that the deformed projects of Bill Gates and his friends will
not succeed in keeping on its feet, despite all of their efforts. The end of
this world that is a child of the Revolution was announced one hundred years
ago at Fatima, and the horizon that we have in front of us is not the hour of
the final dictatorship of the Antichrist but rather that of the Triumph of the
Immaculate Heart of Mary, preceded by the chastisements announced by the
Blessed Mother if humanity would not convert. Today, even among the best
Catholics, there is a psychological resistance against speaking of
chastisements. But Count Joseph de Maistre admonishes us: “Chastisement governs
all of humanity; chastisement guards it; chastisement keeps watch while the
watchmen sleep. The wise man considers chastisement as the perfection of
justice” (Les soirées de Saint
Petersbourg, Pelagard, Lyon 1836, vol. I, p. 37).
Saint Charles Borromeo in turn recalls that “among all the other corrections that his divine Majesty sends, the
chastisement of pestilence is usually attributed to his hand in a more special
way,” and he explains this principle with the example of David, the sinner
king, to whom God gave the choice of either plague, war, or famine as a
chastisement. David chose the plague with these words: “Melius est ut incidam in manus Domini, quam in manus hominum.” It
is better that I fall into the hands of God than into the hands of men.
Therefore, Saint Charles concludes, “the
plague, along with war and famine, is attributed very especially to the hand of
God” (Memoriale ai Milanesi di Carlo Borromeo, Giordano Editore, Milan
1965, p. 34).
It is the hour to recognize the merciful hand of God in the scourges
that begin to strike humanity.
Roberto de Mattei
Translated by Giuseppe Pellegrino @pellegrino2020
