Posts tagged Exsul Familia
Mexico, Mass Migration, and the Example of Moses Part VI: Rome and the Enormous Lies of Exsul Familia

This week we continue our look at Exsul Familia, Pope Pius XII's 1952 apostolic constitution which has been called "The Church's Magna Charta for Migrants." This exposition was inspired by the recent remarks of then Mexican presidential candidate, and now president elect of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who, during his presidential campaign, promised to defend the right of every person in North America, indeed, every person in the world, to migrate to the United States.

Lopez Obrador's comment struck at least one writer as not only a slightly bizarre campaign promise, but an actual invasion threat toward a neighboring sovereign state. 

But as strange as Lopez Obrador's comments were, he didn't arrive at his statements on his own.  Rather, his belief that everyone has a right to migrate to the United States, regardless of the cost to American taxpayers, is one implication of the Roman Church-State's doctrine of immigration, migration and refugee resettlement as set forth most completely in the afore mentioned apostolic constitution Exsul Familia.     

Thus far, we've looked at what an apostolic constitution is - according to a number of Roman Catholic source, apostolic constitutions are the most authoritative of all papal documents, outranking even papal encyclicals in importance - and have begun to examine the erroneous foundational economic doctrine that undergirds all of the Roman Church-State's claims that mass, taxpayer funded immigration, migration, and refugee resettlement are consistent with Christian teaching.  That doctrine is called the universal destination of goods.  The universal destination of goods holds that when God created the world, he gave it to humanity in common, that is to say, collectively.  In other words, Rome believes in original communism. 

But God did not give the Earth the men to men corporately.  As John Robbins notes, "God, holding ultimate ownership of the Earth, gave it to men severally, not collectively.  The argument for this may be found in the words of the seventeenth-century Christian thinker, Robert Filmer" (Ronald Sider - Contra Deum).   Contrary to Rome, the original economic order was not communism, but private property.  To put it another way, the Bible teaches original capitalism.  Lord willing, I shall present a more complete case for this in a future installment.  Readers who admire the work of John Robbins, as does this author, will be interested to know the basis for my argument for original capitalism is Dr. Robbins 1973 doctoral dissertation, The Political Thought of Sir Robert Filmer

But for this week's installment, I would like to show another implication of Rome's evil doctrine of the universal destination of goods, tyrannical world government. 

 

The Universal Destination of Goods, the Destruction of National Sovereignty, and Institution of World Government

As we noted in Part 4 of this series, the doctrine of the universal destination of goods holds that need, not possession, is the ultimate and only moral title to property.  One of the implications of this teaching is the welfare state, and it should come as no surprise that prelates of the Roman Church-State have been long been among the most ardent proponents of socialism and are largely responsible for the erection of the enormously expensive welfare bureaucracies imposed upon the formerly free nations of the West.     

But Rome isn't satisfied merely with setting up welfare state tyrannies in individual nations.  No, Rome's program of socialism is a scalable tyranny.  Rome's intends to use citizens of the wealthy nations of the West as tax donkeys to pay welfare benefits, not just to the native poor of their own nations, but to foreign migrants as well. 

It is my contention that Rome intends to use these welfare migrants as a means to disrupt the societies into which they come, socially, politically and economically with the ultimate goal of making them ungovernable and thus easily folded into a system of world government headed by the Roman Church-State and her Antichrist popes.     

For proof of this, let's turn to Pope Pius XII's words in Exsul Familia.  He wrote,

You know indeed how preoccupied we have been and with what anxiety we have followed those who have been forced by revolutions in their own countries, or by unemployment or hunger to leave their homes and live in foreign lands.

The natural law itself, no less than devotion to humanity, urges that ways of migration be opened to these people.  For the Creator of the universe made all good things primarily for the good of all [n.b. this is the universal destination of goods].  Since land everywhere offers the possibility of supporting a large number of people, the sovereignty of the State, although it must be respected, cannot be exaggerated to the point that access to this land is, for inadequate reasons, denied to needy [n.b. need is explicitly cited as the basis for Rome's migration policy] and decent people from other nations, provided of course, that the public wealth, considered very carefully, does not forbid this (emphasis mine).

Note well the implied globalism in this statement.  Rome claims that the sovereignty of the state must be respected, but that it, "cannot be exaggerated to the point," that needy migrants are denied access to the resources of its people.  But who decides whether a nation state is exaggerating its sovereignty or not?  Though not explicitly stated here, in the eyes of Rome the pope is the ultimate decider. 

When one speaks of Rome's desire for world dominion, he runs the risk of being labeled a conspiracy theorist.  But while Rome's thirst to rule the world is a conspiracy, it's an open one, and perhaps the world's worst kept secret.  In fact, it's really not a secret at all.  The pope's have grown so bold in recent decades that they explicitly and very publically call for it.

Guadium et Spes, one of the major documents of Vatican II reads,

it is our clear duty, therefore, to strain every muscle in working for the time when all war can be completely outlawed by international consent.  This goal undoubtedly requires the establishment of a universal public authority acknowledged as such by all and endowed with the power to safeguard on the behalf of all, security, regard for justice, and respect for rights (quoted in Robbins, Ecclesiastical Megalomania, 187).

More recently, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace released a document titled Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Public Authority. As Reuters reports,

The Vatican called on Monday for sweeping reforms of the world economy and the creation of an ethical, global authority to regulate financial markets...

The Vatican called for the establishment of "a supranational authority" with worldwide scope and "universal jurisdiction" to guide economic policies and decisions.

Such an authority should start with the United Nations as its reference point but later become independent and be endowed with the power to see to it that developed countries were not allowed to wield "excessive power over the weaker countries"...

One section of the document explained why the Vatican felt the reform of the global economy was necessary and called for specific reforms such as taxation of financial transactions...

"In fact, one can see an emerging requirement for a body that will carry out the functions of a kind of 'central world bank' that regulates the flow and system of monetary exchanges similar to the national central banks"...

"Of course, this transformation will be made at the cost of a gradual, balanced transfer of part of each nation's powers to a world authority and regional authorities..."

This naturally raises the question, So just who will be in charge of this "supranational authority" with worldwide scope and "universal jurisdiction," not to mention who will run the "central world bank"?

Again, the papal document doesn't come right out and say so, but given that the statements are coming from the Vatican, there can be no doubt but that the Church has in mind the popes of Rome.  Consider, if you will, the symbolism of the papal tiara.

As the Vatican itself acknowledges, "The Triregnum (the Papal Tiara formed by three crowns)" symbolizes "the triple power of the Pope:  father of kings, governor of the world and Vicar of Christ."   Apart from any other argument or statement, the arrogant claims of the popes of Rome as symbolized by the tiara ought to be enough to remove all doubt about who Rome sees as controlling the envisioned apparatus of world government. 

Rome's hatred of sovereign nations that do not bow to the pope can be traced at least as far back as the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.  This treaty established what has come to be known as the Westphalian World Order, an international system in which national governments were the highest level of civil authority.  "The Westphalian peace...relied on a system of independent states refraining from interference in each other's domestic affairs and checking each other's ambitions through a general equilibrium of power...[E]ach state was assigned the attribute of sovereign power over its territory.  Each would acknowledge the domestic structures and religious vocations of its fellow states as realities and refrain from challenging their existence" (Henry Kissinger, World Order, 3).   One could say that the Westphalian World Order was the application of the Biblical principle of MYOB (Mind Your Own Business) to international politics (see 2 Thessalonians 3:11, 12).

Of course, this is antithetical to the teaching of Rome, which holds that the pope is the "father of kings and governor of the world."  Rome's reaction to the Treaty of Westphalia is instructive on this point.

In his papal bull Zelo Domus Dei, Pope Innocent the X raged against the articles of the Treaty of Westphalia,  calling them, "null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all time." Given Rome's severe and historic case of ecclesiastical megalomania, such a statement should come as no surprise.

That said, it probably does come as a surprise to most 21st century Protestants, who have been taught from their youth up that the pope is a brother in Christ, that he is their friend, and that he is a fellow soldier in the culture war.  All this is an enormous lie. 

In truth, in the pope's raging one hears the voice of Antichrist.  It is the voice of the little horn of Daniel which speaks pompous words and makes war against the saints of God, prevailing against them.    

The popes of Rome are megalomaniacal James Bond villains in clerical garb.  They have never given up their desire to rule the world.  And, as Revelation teaches, they temporarily will succeed in doing so.  One of the ways the popes aim to effect this world wide rule is through mass, taxpayer funded immigration, migration, and refugee resettlement. 

Antichrist has laid out his program for world domination in very clear language in numerous papal documents.  Mass, taxpayer funded migration, immigration, and refugee resettlement is one of Rome's principle tools for effecting this outcome.  The program outlined in the apostolic constitution Exsul Familia has, by admission of the editor of Rome's official commentary on the document, "enormous financial implications."  More to the point, Rome's doctrine of migration, if followed to its full extent, will result in the financial bankruptcy of the host nations.    

But in addition to financial implications, Rome's program also has significant political implications.  When Rome calls for millions upon millions of migrants, refugees and immigrants - people who have no knowledge of the doctrine of Justification by Belief Alone on which those societies are built and thus no knowledge of the economic and political implications of that doctrine, namely, free markets and limited government -  to flood the formerly Protestant nations of the West, the effect is to Romanize those nations and to prepare them to be folded into Rome's planned system of "supranational authority" with worldwide scope and "universal jurisdiction," with the effect that, no one will be able to buy or sell except one who has the mark or name of the beast, or the number of his name.    

When popes of Rome speak of respecting national sovereignty, they lie and enormous lie.  The only sovereignty they respect is that of their own pretended authority. 

Mexico, Mass Migration and the Example of Moses Part IV: Rome and the Enormous Lies of Exsul Familia

Have you ever stopped to think about your property?  Specifically, have you ever considered the question, By what right do  I own anything? 

Since this is a blog post, you're probably reading these words on some sort of electronic device.  Maybe you're using a smart phone or a tablet or a desktop or laptop computer.  So let me ask my original question to you in a little different way, By what right do you claim ownership of the electronic device you're using to read this post?

Suppose you're reading this post on your tablet.  Perhaps you'd say to me, "I own this table, because I went to the store and bought it." 

Okay, but let's take that back another step and ask this question, By what right did the store sell you the tablet?  You may say to me, "Well, the store bought it from an electronic wholesaler."

But then that raises a further question, Where did the wholesaler get the right to sell the tablet to the store where you bought it.  "From the manufacturer or course," you may reply. 

Alright, so how did the manufacturer rightfully get the parts to assemble the tablet?  "The manufacturer bought them from a supplier," you may retort.

This is really becoming tiresome, I know.  But still, I can't help asking, Just where did the parts supplier get the materials, the silicon for example, to manufacture the integrated circuits that are essential to making your table work?

"Well, quite obviously, the parts manufacturer bought the silicon from a silicon supplier," you would answer.

"Very well," I'd reply, "but let me ask you this, Since the base materials for silicon metal used to make your device's integrated circuits are gravel and items such as coke, coal and wood chips, where did the supplier of silicon get the right to use these items?" 

"They bought them from gravel and coal miners and from suppliers of wood products," would likely be you answer.

Alright already.  So where did the gravel miners, the coal miners and the suppliers of wood products get the right to use the land from which they took the raw materials? 

"Naturally, they bought the land from Old MacDonald, who figured he could do better by selling his land to the coal miners than spending the rest of his life raising chickens and cows and pigs."

Okay, okay, okay.  Lest this become overly wearisome for the both of us, let me ask just one last question.  Where did Old MacDonald get the title to his farm in the first place?

"Well, I guess he bought it from the previous owner, maybe it was the bank or some other farmer."

But, BUT, BUT!...No, I'm not going to go there.  I promised that would be the last question, and I'll keep my word.

I hope, though, that this somewhat annoying line of questioning has raised your curiosity about the issue of ownership.  Just how is it that we can claim the right to own something?  Is it even possible to rightly claim ownership, that is, the exclusive right to use and dispose of a particular good or service, or should we all be collectivists holding all things in common? 

Now you may be thinking at this point, "Steve that's all very interesting, but just what on earth does any of this have to do with your main point of refuting Exsul Familia, Rome's position paper on immigration, migration, and refugee resettlement? 

The short answer is, quite a lot.  Let's take a look at it.

 

Secular/Philosophic Theories of Property

As you may already suspect, there are a number of competing theories that attempt to explain the institution of private property.  This is an important question.  John Robbins called private property, "the central economic institution of civilized societies," (Ecclesiastical Megalomania, 30) and the present author agrees with this assessment. 

Although it's beyond the scope of the series of posts to analyze all the various non-Christian theories of property out there, it may be helpful to review a few of them, paying special attention to Rome's unbiblical theory of property and showing how it manifests itself in Exsul Familia and undergirds Rome's onerous and false assertion that Western nations not only have a duty to accept all immigrants migrants and refugees who wish to come to them regardless of their reason for coming, but also that Western citizens have an obligation to pay the expenses of said immigrants, migrants and refugees through social services, the money for which comes from taxes levied upon the citizens.

In his journal article "Theories of Property," George B. Newcomb asserted that the Romans had a very individualistic view of property, but that this view was, "due, in part at least, to the influence of the time when the claim to private property was especially founded in the personal prowess of the warrior."  Apparently in Rome the right of ownership rested, to some degree, on the ability to beat someone up and take his stuff.

John Locke, on the other hand, took a more peaceful approach to acquisition of private property.  In his Second Treatise on Civil Government, Locke wrote, "God gave the World to Adam and his Posterity in common" (Laslett ed., 286).  In other words, Locke believed in original communism. 

But how did it come about that individual men claimed to own land, which was given in common to all by God?  Lock explained, "Though the Earth, and all inferior Creatures be common to all Men, yet every Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself.  The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his.  Whatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his Labour with, and joyned to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his Property" (Laslett ed., 287, 288). 

In short, if you, for example, clear a field which is not, as far as you know, claimed by anyone in particular and begin farming, you've mixed your labor with the field and it rightfully belongs to you. 

But, one could ask Locke, by what right does someone mix his labor with the commons?  That's a good question.

Perhaps a more recent writer can help us understand and defend the institution of private property.  Ludwig Von Mises, widely considered the greatest of the Austrian economists, seems like a promising place to turn.  What says Von Mises?

Writing in Chapter 24 of Human Action, he explains private property this way,

Private property is a human device. It is not sacred. It came into existence in early ages of history, when people with their own power and by their own authority appropriated to themselves what had previously not been anybody's property. Again and again, proprietors were robbed of their property by expropriation. The history of private property can be traced back to a point at which it originated out of acts that were certainly not legal. Virtually every owner is the direct or indirect legal successor of people who acquired ownership either by arbitrary appropriation of ownerless things or by violent spoliation of their predecessor.

To Von Mises way of thinking, private property, "originated out of acts that were certainly not legal."  In essence, he argues that all of us are guilty of receiving stolen property. 

This doesn't seem like a very promising defense of private property.      

 

Rome's Theory of Property

Rome derives its theory of property from the work of Thomas Aquinas, which theory is masterfully explained by John Robbins in his book Ecclesiastical Megalomania.  Rome rejects the Bible's view of private property, substituting in its place a doctrine called the Universal Destination of Goods.  To understand Rome's doctrine of the Universal Destination of Goods, Robbins tells us we first must first understand Thomas' view of the law.

According to Thomas, there are four kinds of law.  First, there is eternal law, which is God's plan for the universe and all its inhabitants.  Thus it is part of the eternal law that rocks, for example, fall to the ground when dropped; and plants, for example, grow toward the light.  Second, there is natural law, which is the participant of rational creatures in the eternal law.  Thus man is by nature a social animal.  When men speak to each other and live in societies, they are doing what is natural to them, just as rocks and plants do.  Third, there is positive law, which is customs, laws, and regulations made by rulers attempting to apply the natural law to individuals and societies.  Finally, there is divine law, such as the Ten Commandments. 

Private property, according to Thomas, is neither part of the natural law nor an absolute right, but an invention of human reason.  It is a creation of and regulated by positive law.  Rather than private property being part of the natural law, the possession of all things in common is the natural law [note that John Locke, supposedly a defender of limited government and private property, also believed in original communism as can be seen from the quote above].  Thomas wrote: "... 'the possession of all things in common and universal freedom' are said to be of the natural law because, to wit, the distinction of possessions and slavery were not brought in by nature, but devised by human reason for the benefit of human life." The institution of private property, like slavery, is a positive, not a natural, institution, and  therefore rightfully subject to human regulation.  The "community of goods," wrote Thomas,

is ascribed to the natural law, not that the natural law dictates that all things should be possessed in common and that nothing should be possessed as one's own, but because the division of the possessions is not according to the natural law, but rather arose from human agreement, which belongs to positive law...Hence the ownership of possessions is not contrary to the natural law, but an addition thereto devised by human reason.

It is important to keep in mind that according to Roman Catholic economic thought, here represented by its greatest and only official philosopher, Thomas Aquinas, that communism (with a small "c") - what Thomas called the community of goods - is part of the natural law; and that private property is part of the positive law.  Private property is an "addition to" the natural law.  Though private property is not contrary to the natural law, it is not itself natural, and it does not enjoy the same metaphysical or ethical status as the community of good.  While men cannot change the natural law - rather, they are required to conform to it, according to Roman Church-State thought - they can change positive law,  and they may do so in whatever manner is expedient and moral.

Now several things might make such a community of goods expedient, but one makes the community of goods morally imperative:  need.  Thomas wrote:

Things which are of human right cannot derogate [stray from] natural rights or divine right...The division and appropriation of things which are based on human law do not preclude t he fact that man's needs have to be remedied by mans of these very things.  Hence, whatever certain people have in superabundance is due, by natural law, to the purpose of succoring the poor.

Because the goods of some are due to others by the natural law, there is no sin if the poor take the goods of their neighbors...[A]ccording to Thomas:

...it is lawful for a man to succor his own need by means of another's property by taking it either openly or secretly; nor is this, properly speaking, theft and robbery.... It is not theft, properly speaking, to take secretly and use another's property in a case of extreme need; because that which he takes for the support of his life becomes his own property by reason of that need.... In a case of a like need a man may also take secretly another's property in order to succor his neighbor in need.

In Thomas' philosophy, need is the moral criterion for the rightful and lawful possession of property:  Whoever needs property ought to possess it.  Need makes another's goods one's own.  Need is the ultimate and only moral title to property.  Neither possession, nor creation, nor production, nor gift, nor inheritance, nor divine commandment (with the exception of Roman Church-State property) grants title to property that is immune to the prior claim of need...

The Thomistic notion of original communism - the denial that private property is part of the natural law, but that common property is both natural and divine - is foundational to all the Roman Catholic arguments for various forms of collectivism, from medieval feudalism and guild socialism to twentieth century fascism and liberation theology.  The popes refer to this original communism as the "universal destination of all goods" (Robbins, 30-32, 38).

To sum up, Rome supports private property up to a point.   When things are going well, it's all well and good for you to own your house or your farm or your car.  But when push comes to shove, when things get serious, need overrides your title to your property.  It, therefore, is right, proper and moral for those in need to take what is yours.  The assertion that need is the ultimate and only moral title to property is based on Rome's mistaken assertion of original communism, the idea that God gave the world to all men in common.  This original communism, what Thomas called the community of goods, is referred to by the popes as the Universal Destination of Goods.      

Earlier I quoted Robbins saying that private property is the central economic institution of civilized societies.  But that's not all Robbins had to say.  The quote continues, "and it is the Roman Church-State's rejection of private property that contributed to the establishment of several varieties of destructive anti-capitalism throughout the world.

One of the manifestations of Rome's anti-capitalism is its teaching on immigration, migration and refugee resettlement.  The next section will demonstrate this from the text of Exsul Familia

(To be continued...)