Plot Against the Church: Part 4 - Maurice Pinay |
Fifty years had passed since a great number of Jews in the Gothic kingdom had been converted to Christianity and three decades since the time when the historian Amador de los Rios spoke of an almost universal conversion. The kingdom of Reccared was nevertheless flooded and undermined by false Christians who secretly practised the Jewish religion and plotted in secret to destroy the Church and the State. In the year 681, when Ervigio entered the government, the situation was so serious that the high Catholic clergy and the monarch together worked out common civil and church laws in order to destroy the Jewish Fifth Column in Christianity. Everyone who, as a Christian, observed in secret the rites and customs of the Jews and supported these false Christians or concealed them in any kind of form—even without exception of the bishops who made themselves guilty of this crime—was severely punished. These laws were at first approved by the monarchs in collaboration with respected members of the clergy and later laid before the 12th Council of Toledo for approval. There these laws were approved as church authority by archbishops and bishops and were entered into the laws of the Synod mentioned.
In order to understand the basis of the canons, both of the Ecumenical as well as the provincial Holy Church Councils, which wished to solve the terrible Jewish problem and especially that of the Fifth Column in Christian society, one must bear in mind that both then as today no land tolerated that a group of foreigners might abuse the magnanimously given hospitality and betray the land in question, which had naively opened its doors to them, through espionage and sabotage.
Then these spies and saboteurs were without exception punished with death by all peoples, as also in general still in modern times. There is additionally the fact that the Jewish Fifth Column in Christian and pagan nations, besides carrying on espionage and sabotage, has also exercised and provoked in the course of centuries an inner attempt at conquest and has provoked civil wars which cost millions of men their lives, and which has murdered in their own house those who opened the frontiers to them, robbed them or attempted to enslave them. Undoubtedly the so-called Jewish colonies in the Christian and pagan lands are more dangerous and harmful for the states afflicted than the usual espionage and sabotage organisations. If the members of these organisations are punished without regard to race, religion or nationality, why should an exception be made to the most dangerous, harmful and criminal Fifth Column? What privilege do the Jews enjoy, that when they commit high treason, espionage or sabotage or plot against the people which houses them, they are forgiven and not punished like spies of other races and nationalities?
All peoples have a natural right of justified defence, and if a pair of alien immigrants violate the hospitality granted them, they bring these peoples into a dilemma of life and death. These disgraceful aliens are solely responsible for the measures which the betrayed, threatened people seizes upon against the Fifth Column.
So did Holy Church and the Christian monarchs conceive things, and at several Councils—as we will see later—it is made clear that these criminals should be punished with death. But instead of passing in this case the customary and completely justified judgment, Holy Church and the Christian kings made an exception with the Jews and presented them with life a hundred times over. As a result they endangered their future and their right to live in peace and freedom in their own land. With such exceptionally good will a series of measures, instead of radically suppressing them, were seized upon in order to prevent the Jewish Fifth Column from being able to cause all too much harm and so that it did not injure the people which sheltered them. But since they were granted life, the measures were ineffective. Therefore the various Councils of the Church and the Papal Bulls passed a series of norms and laws, laying down, for example, that the Jews should wear a sign, so that they were distinguished from the other inhabitants of the land in which they lived. This should enable it to be easier to safeguard oneself from the revolutionary activity of the Jews against Church and State. These signs varied; they had to have a mark on their heads, they had to wear a special cap, a dress or another distinguishing mark.
In other cases it was ordered in the Church laws and the Papal Mandates that they must restrict themselves to certain parts of the city, so-called Ghettos, and that they might occupy no government or Church offices, which made it possible for them to continue their activity of conquest and their domination over the people which in unfortunate manner had opened its frontiers to them.
The backsliders were often executed, but in most cases these were spared their lives, and it was limited to confiscating their goods, to expelling them from the land or by applying lighter punishments, such as whipping, no longer customary today, which was then the practice in all lands of earth.
Since this dangerous Fifth Column again and again plotted against the Christian peoples and "Holy Church", the Church attempted, instead of seeking the final way out and applying the death penalty—as all peoples do with professional spies and saboteurs—to suppress them by gentler methods, by removing their authority from the grown-ups and bringing the children into monasteries and honourable Christian families. In this manner they wished to attain that, after two or three generations, the threat from the Fifth Column would be eliminated, without carrying out mass executions of these masters of espionage, of sabotage and of betrayal.
However, it must be recognised that this extraordinary good-will by Holy Church, by Christian monarchs, and also by the high personages of the Islamic world, was of no avail. The repressive measures against the Fifth Column were not only hated, but the Jews also made use of countless subterfuges in order to evade the measures which tied their hands and which were intended to prevent them from doing too much evil. They made use of bribery and bought with gold the bad civil and church personages so that the latter caused the valid civil and Church laws to become dead letters, or they spun countless intrigues in order to free themselves from this control, which was intended to restrict their power. They called forth fresh revolts, plotted more and more dangerous conspiracies and abused the goodness of the Church and Christian peoples, until they were successful in modern times in breaking the chains which had prevented them from causing greater harm, in invading Christian society, and threatening it with complete destruction.
In order to grasp the justification of all Church laws which we investigate in this work and all measures to preserve the peoples from the conspiracy of these harmful aliens, we must recall all the preceding. We understand among this that Holy Church acted in no way cruelly—as the Jews assert—but in an extremely good-willed way with them. And perhaps this most extreme good-will was particularly responsible for the great progress that the Jews with their conquest and enslaving of the peoples could make, as is the case today in the unfortunate lands in which the totalitarian dictatorship of Jewish socialism rules. This is a catastrophic situation, which would have already come into existence many centuries before, if the Church had not at least carried out the precautionary measures which we will investigate in the ensuing chapters of this work.
After these justified elaborations concerning the defence of doctrine and policy which Holy Church followed in course of the centuries, we will now occupy ourselves with the corresponding statutes of the 12th Council of Toledo.
In the letter which the King laid before the Holy Synod it is stated as follows:
"Hear, honourable Fathers and respected priests of the heavenly ministries. . . I come with tears in the eyes to your honourable paternal gathering, so that through the zeal of your court the earth will be freed from the infection of wickedness. Arise, I beg thee, arise, unmask the guilty, censure the repellent customs of the evildoers, show the whip of your zeal towards the faithless, and make an end to the bite of the arrogant, make easier the burden of the oppressed, and above all exterminate the Jewish pest thoroughly which each day reaches out more rapidly around itself. Investigate also very thoroughly the laws, which you passed a short while ago against the falsity of the Jews, strengthen these laws still more and compile them in a statute, in order to bridle the blasphemy ofthefaithless."
It is interesting that, among the evil conditions which were brought to the notice of the Synod, the Jewish pest, which day by day increased in alarming measure, is held to be the worst.
In Canon 9 of this Holy Council the laws approved against clandestine Jewry were confirmed, i.e. against the Jews who pretended to be Christians and who were described both by the monarchs as also by the Synods simply as Jews, since one was certain that, as descendants of the Jews, they secretly practised their Jewish religion. Of the law mentioned, which comprises the entire anti-Jewish legislation, we will repeat only the most interesting parts.
"Canon 9: Confirmation of the laws against the wickedness of the Jews arranged according to the different titles as they are recorded in this law."
"We have read the titles of the different laws which the famous prince has recently passed against the monstrous falsehood of the Jews and have approved them after strict examination. And since they were approved by the Synod with justice, they will be irrevocably applied in future against blasphemy. Among these fall. . ."
Now follow the laws which, after their approval, belong to Law 9. On account of their importance we have emphasised the following statutes. In the first law it is mentioned that the great falsity of the Jews and their dark errors "become very subtle and they perfect themselves in their wicked art and in deceit." For they pretended to be good Christians and always attempted to evade the laws which forbade to them their secret subterranean Judaism.
In the 4th and 5th Canon the punishments for the secret Jews are cited who celebrate the Jewish rites and festivals, and who attempt to bring Christians away from their faith in Christ. Here it is not a question of the rites and ceremonies of an alien religion, but of punishing the false Christians who, in spite of their hypocrisy, still practised the Jewish religion in secret. The repressive measures were thus aimed at destroying the Jewish Fifth Column in the bosom of Holy Church and of the Christian State.
In the 7th Canon, the Jews who pretended to be Christians are forbidden to practise the Jewish religious customs relating to meat. However, it is elaborated that the good Christians must eat no pork. One sees that these false Catholics still always deceived the clergy and the King with their apparent disinclination against pork.
In Canon 9 the revolutionary activity against the Christian faith is forbidden and severe penalties laid upon malefactors. In addition, punishments are even provided for Christians who conceal the Jews or support them. Concerning this it is expressly stated:
"If anyone hides them in his house or aids them to flee, he shall, if that is proved. . . receive a hundred lashes of the whip, his goods fall to the King, and he will be expelled forever from the land."
Thus those who supported the Jews or concealed them are punished in a terrible way. By this the bishops of the Council and the monarch himself wished to be rid of those who supported the Jews and their accomplices in the struggle against Christianity.
Without doubt more than ever today must effectiveness be given to these statutes of this Holy Law. For only thus can we hope to conquer the Jewish-Communist beast, which has success because the seeming Christians are ready to support the Jews and Communists and to make their victory easier.
Also in the 10th Law, without regard to class or position, punishments are ordained against those who support Jewry, and it is stated among other things:
"Canon 10: When, therefore, a Christian of any origin, class or rank, man, woman, priest or layman, accepts a gift in order to help a Jew or Jewess against the law of Christ, or accepts any kind of present from them or their agents, or in return for any kind of gift does not guard and hold high the Commandments of the Law of Christ (simple passivity in the face of the foe), so. . . All who allow themselves to be bribed with a gift or conceal a fault of a Jew and do not exemplarily punish his wickedness, will be penalised by the statutes of the Holy Fathers in the decrees and must, if it is proved against them, pay double to the state treasury of the King of what they received from the Jew or Jewess."
As one sees, the Jews have always understood in a masterly way how to buy the Christians and Gentiles with gold, since the latter frequently suffered from a chronic avarice and sold themselves to the Synagogue of Satan.
The Israelite ambassadors and embassies in various lands of the world have handed over to archbishops and high dignitaries of the Catholic Church suspicious invitations and seduced them with an interesting, expense-free journey with a skilfully drawn-up route of travel, exactly as in the case of travels in the Soviet Union. This they do on the eve of the next Ecumenical Council and wish with this, as we have experienced, to buy support for their proposal condemning anti-Semitism, which the international Jews hold in readiness and which their agents of the Fifth Column intend to set through at the Council. We hope that this kind of bribery—gratis journeys to Palestine—fails and that no imitator of the Apostles commits the sin of Judas and sells himself for thirty pieces of silver.
Holy Church has always made efforts to find the motive which binds secret Jewry, the converts and their descendants. A reason lies in the Jewish books which these false Christians secretly read and whose doctrines were inherited from father to son. In Canon 11 it is proposed to punish this offence severely, and it is ordered, among others, that:
". . . the secret Jew, who is found with such books in his house or which are found on him, shall be marked on his head and upon the first occasion receive a hundred lashes of the whip. In addition, he must sign in the presence of witnesses that he will never again read such books or possess them. If he afterwards becomes back-sliding, his property shall be made responsible to the Baron, whom the King has appointed and he shall be expelled from the land. If a teacher is trapped thereby in spreading this error, and continued to teach what is forbidden, then he shall experience the same punishment as his pupils when they are older than twelve. If they are younger, they are not punished in this manner. . ."
As one sees, the utmost effort was made in this regard, in order to prevent false Christians transmitting secret Judaism through instruction in their doctrine and secret books handed down from father to son. Simultaneously a vain attempt was made to prevent the guilty from backsliding and they were made to give before witnesses a formal written promise that they would not do it again. This promise was valueless, for the Jews have neither upon this nor upon other occasions kept their promises or solemn pacts, as the facts have proved in the ensuing years.
"Canon 13: If a Jew, through cheating or deceit or from fear of losing his wealth, asserts that he keeps to the morals and laws of the Christians and fulfils the words according to the law of Christ and says he will retain his Christian servants because he is a Christian, so. . . we have reflected upon what manner he shall prove what he has said, so that from now on he may not cheat or hold back what he has said. Therefore we ordain that all Jews in the province of our kingdom can sell their Christian servants, as we have ordered in the preceding law. If they wish to keep them, they must declare themselves to be Christians as we have declared in this book. For we give them an opportunity not to further render themselves suspect and to wash themselves free of all doubts in the time of sixty days, from 1st February to 1st April of this year."
Accordingly, they are obligated through this law to go to the bishop of the province, and to promise openly before witnesses to give up all Jewish customs which they condemned, and that:
". . . they never more fall back into their old unbelief and maintain all other statutes which we explain in this chapter; that they under such circumstances confess and openly admit not to preserve in their heart the opposite of what they proclaim with their mouth, and not to hypocritically adopt Christianity outwardly and in their hearts preserve Judaism. . . And if one of them gives himself out as a Christian and, after the evidence mentioned and the oath, holds again to the law of the Jews, believes in it and thus breaks his promise and does not hold it, and has falsely spoken in God's name, and falls back into the unbelief of the Jews, his goods are confiscated in favour of the King, he shall receive a hundred lashes of the whip, be marked on the head, and banished to the uttermost ends of the world."
With this determination, which belongs to the collection of laws mentioned that were approved and empowered in the Church Canon 9 of the 12th Council of Toledo, the archbishops and bishops of the Holy Synod wished to prevent the secret Jews controlling Christian servants and gave them the opportunity of remaining Jews openly, without expropriating them. By the uttermost caution with which the Prelates and the King proceeded, it is clear that the Jews, in order to retain their Christian servants, pretended to be bound to the Christian faith whilst they remained Jews in secret and belonged to that destructive Jewish Fifth Column in Christianity. Therefore they were threatened with severe punishments if they were discovered in the act, and a vain attempt was made to attain the honest conversion of the Jews and their descendants, and to destroy the dangerous Fifth Column.
Unfortunately, neither Holy Church nor the Christian monarch could attain their goals. They only attained that the false Christians became more and more successful in concealing their subterranean Judaism based on their experience and because they knew that lack of reflection and lack of caution could betray them. As a result, they perfected their deceptive methods and in the course of centuries attained the greatest possible perfection in this art.
On the other hand, the Holy Synod already concerned itself with a problem which was intended to draw the attention of Christian and Mohammedan peoples: that the Jews should wear a special distinguishing mark that distinguished them from the rest of the people, so that the latter could protect themselves from their deceit and their revolutionary activity. Here the Holy Synod determined that they should be marked on the head. As a result they were perhaps distinguished in a more effective way as dangerous, secret Jews than they were later by other Christian and Mohammedan devices and lastly by the Nazi device of the renowned star of Judah on their clothing. They could remove their caps, their special dress or their stars, but only with difficulty the distinguishing mark on their heads.
A similar determination would alarm us in the 20th century, if a Holy Church Council passed it. But whoever knows the deadly danger which this Jewish band of criminals has always represented for the rest of the world and still represents will be more tolerant and understand. These signs, which were used at different times, were an effective method, so that the false Christians of the Jewish Fifth Column were recognisable and the real disciples of Christ could protect themselves from their destructive activity. If we could recognise them at the time in our days, then it would not have been possible for them to commit so successfully their betrayal and deceit, through which so many peoples were handed over to murderous Communism.
We will come back again later to the Holy Council of Toledo. To the Laws which were approved through the Church Canon 9 belong the Canons 14 and 15, which contain the wording for the conspiracy of Judaism and simultaneously the oath of loyalty to Christianity. Both were unfortunately used within the framework of an unfruitful attempt to secure the honesty of this false conversion.
In spite of all measures to prevent this, the Jew attempts, in every land which opens its gates to him, to exercise a rule over those who afforded him hospitality. Through Canon 17 it is attempted to make an end to a part of this activity by forbidding the Jews, among other things, to "have power over a Christian or control him" and ordering that they "in no manner command Christians, sell them, or have any kind of power over them."
For the Jews who overstep this law and also for the nobles and barons in public offices who violate it and give the Jews power over the Christians, penalties are ordered. Unfortunately, the Jews spurred on the rebellious spirit of the Visigoth nobles against the monarch, in order to secure their protection and thus made the efficacy of these laws largely worthless.
Another measure of the Holy Council for destruction of the Fifth Column is cited in Canon 18, which established a veritable espionage against Christians of Jewish descent within their very homes, by compelling their Christian servants to denounce their Jewish practices and offering them their freedom in exchange. In the law mentioned it is stated concerning the servants: "That at each time he who says and swears he is a Christian, and reveals the unbelief of his master and reveals his error, shall be set free."
Perhaps this measure for the destruction of clandestine Jewry in the bosom of Christian society was the most effective of all those previously cited. At that time it was logical that a servant who was almost a slave had interest in receiving freedom, if he revealed the secret Jewish practices of his masters who were only seeming Christians. In this respect the Prelates of the Holy Council really undertook a decisive step, for now the members of the Fifth Column in their own homes had to take heed before their own servants, who could any moment discover and report their secret Judaism. Unfortunately, the false Jewish Christians found ways and means in order to conceal their secret Judaism even in their own homes, and the measure was not sufficient in order to destroy the Fifth Column. Clandestine Jewry was only more resolute and concealed, as we shall see in later chapters.
This Holy Council concerned itself again with the condemnation of bishops and clergy who supported the Jews in a harmful way and manner. In addition it is stated in Canon 19, which was approved in Church Law 9:
"And when a bishop, priest or deacon provides a Jew with power, in order to somehow control the Church or to destroy the affairs of Christians, he must give so much of his property to the king as the Church affairs are worth which he entrusted to the Jew. If he has no property, in order to pay, he shall be expelled to the furthermost ends of the earth, so that he does repentance and realises his wicked act."
The Prelates of the Council also approved laws intended to prevent Christians of Jewish origin travelling from one city to another in order to secretly exercise their Jewish religion, when they were no longer subject to the control of the clergy where they currently were. Therefore it is stated in Canon 20:
"When they travel from one place to another, they must reveal to the bishop, priest or burgomaster their place of arrival. They must not remove themselves from this priest, so that the latter can provide proof that they have not celebrated the Sabbath and have not maintained the customs of the Jews. They shall have no opportunity to preserve their error and to hide themselves in order to remain in it. For the same reason they should pay heed to the laws of Christianity"
It is further stated that when they pretend to travel from one place to another:
"They must not leave the priests without permission, to whom they come, before the Sabbaths have passed and before the priests know that they do not observe the Sabbaths. And the priest of their place should write a letter to those of the other place through which these Jews come, in order both with the period of stay or also with the journeys, to avoid deceit. And they are instructed to carry this out exactly. If anyone does not follow our command, the bishop, priest or burgomaster of the place can order a hundred lashes of the whip. For we do not tolerate that they return home without the letters of the bishops or priests of the place which they visited. In the letters the days must be remarked, which they spent with the bishops of that city, how they have come there, when they leave it and have come home."
Without doubt the obligation was difficult for Christian servants to denounce their masters, who were also Christians but who practised the Jewish religion in secret, but it made it difficult for the secret Jews even to maintain in their homes the rites of the Sabbath and of the Jewish festivals. There therefore remained no other choice for them than to pretend a journey and to perform these rites in a secret unwatched-over place. After this cunning had been seen through, the Holy Council and the Christian monarch sought ways and means to control these journeys by secret Jews down to the last detail, in order to prevent that the official Christians as a result practised the Jewish religion.
The Law 11 perfects the preceding ones and renews the old law that the Jews must spend the Jewish feast days with a bishop or priest or—if that is not possible—with good Christians of the place, so "that they prove together with them that they are good Christians and live correctly." In this manner they sought to deprive Christians of Jewish origin of even the smallest possibility of keeping the Jewish feast days, in order to see if they would in the long run become honest Christians and no longer adhere to secret Judaism.
Through the Law 23 the priests receive power, in order to carry out these laws, and the strict command is given them: "Not to protect the Jews or to cite grounds for their defence which give them the possibility of remaining with their error and their law." Clearly the problem of the Judases among the clergy was already then so great that the approval of this law through the Holy Synod was also justified.
"Canon 24: The priests of the Church must avoid falling into the sin, of leaving the peoples in their error. . . and therefore we add, in order to shake them out of their negligence, that a bishop who gives way to avarice or a bad idea and hesitates to fulfil these laws, if he knows their errors, their conceit and their folly and does not compel and punish them, will be banned for three months and must pay the King a pound in gold. If he does not possess this, he will be banned for six months, so that his negligence and weakness be punished. And we give every bishop who zealously serves God the power to check and restrain the error of those Jews and to correct their follies, and he does this in place of the negligent bishop and he completes what the other overlooked. If he does not do this, if he is negligent like the other bishop, fails to serve God zealously and is not conscientious, the King shall make good their error and punish them on account of their sin. The same which we have ordered for those bishops who are negligent in their task of correcting the error of the Jews, is valid also for all believers, priests, deacons, clergy. . ."
When the Council approved this law in its sacred Canon 9, it was declared that it was not only deadly sin if one supported the Jews, but also if the bishop, priests or cleric is negligent in the fulfilment of his duties in the struggle against Jewry, and this deadly sin would be punished with the excommunication of the guilty. Here one could now ask: How many prelates and high dignitaries of the Church would be excommunicated today if Canon 9 of the aforesaid Sacred Council were applied, since the committing of this deadly sin to support the Jews in any kind of form is so widespread among our present-day clergy?
In Canon 28 a very effective measure is ordered. The honesty of the Christian belief of Catholics of Jewish origin should not only be proved through the witness of the bishops, priests or burgomasters of the land, but also through the actions of the Christians themselves. It no longer suffices that they give the assurance of being honestly converted, but they must prove it through deeds. This law, however, deals even more strictly with Christians who, having already been unmasked as secret Jews and pardoned on demonstrating their repentance in words and deeds, were soon to be discovered again practising the Jewish religion. Concerning these recidivists it is stated in the law mentioned:
"That one will never more pardon them and they should suffer punishment without any kind of sympathy, be it now the death penalty or a lesser one which they deserve."
When this Canon was approved by the Holy Council, the doctrine of the Catholic Church in this respect was also firmly laid down. For, although Our Lord God is ready to forgive every sinner before his death, it is quite another matter to hold that the Jews, who represent a constant threat for the Church and mankind, must be punished by the civil authorities on account of their crimes. It is not permissible for them, in order to escape their justified punishment, to quote Our Divine's Saviour's sublime doctrine concerning the forgiveness of one's enemies, for He referred to forgiving the offences committed by one individual against another individual, not to the crimes or offences of an evildoer to the harm of society or of the nation.
The clergy who today stand in the service of Jewry, draw in this respect sophistical conclusions and attempt in a blasphemous way and manner to use the sublime teachings of love and forgiveness of Our Redeemer Jesus Christ, since they wish to prevent peoples threatened by Jewish enslavement from making use of their natural right to a just defence and from fighting against the criminal Jewish conspirators and allotting them a just punishment.
Moreover, one should not forget the great authority that Holy Church has always given to the Councils of Toledo regarding the definition of ecclesiastical doctrine and regarding the measures taken against the Jews by the 12th Council; their vigour, as doctrine of Holy Church, is even greater in view of the fact that, in the year 683, a new Council of Toledo, number 13, not only confirmed, in its Canon 9, the laws approved in the previous Synod, but also ordered that they should be eternally in force and constant, giving them the perennial character of a doctrine of the Church. To this end the aforesaid Canon 9 of the 13th Council of Toledo says:
"Although the synodal acts of the 12th Council of Toledo, which took place in the first year of government of our illustrious Prince Ervigio, were arranged and fixed by the unanimous judgment of our agreement in this royal city, we now add with firm resolve that these resolutions, as they are written or ordered, shall have eternal force and validity."