Was the French Revolution's primary purpose to destroy the Catholic Church?

[KyivAndrew]

Originally Posted by leopolis1

You are right. Not surprisingly freemasons (satanists in fact) chose Catholic France as a right place for the revolution. Protestants were not (and are not) enemies of freemasons, they cooperate together against the enemy - the CC - the true Church of Jesus Christ.

First let's be careful with blanket conspiracy statements if you will. The two most prominent Freemasons in the French Revolution were the Marquis LaFayette and Danton. LaFayette was not a Satanist, he was a Deist just like the Father of the United States George Washington, also a Freemason, and both great friends. I've read Washington's letters on religion, and for that matter Benjamin Franklin's, Thomas Jefferson's, John Adams', and one would be extremely hard-pressed to claim in any of their correspondence or acts that they were Satanists.
They were deists like LaFayette or unitarians. Are you prepared Leopolis to state because George Washington was a Freemason, ipso facto, he was a Satanist and that America was founded by a Satanist? Please let's be reasonable.

The Great Freemason LaFayette had to run for his life when the French rev. took its radical twist, and the Freemason Danton lost his head to the Jacobin terror. Hardly reassuring signs that Freemasonry thoroughly controlled that complex period known as the French Revolution.

I believe that yes, in the 18th and 19th centuries Freemasonic lodges were quite involved involved in revolutionary politics on Continental Europe (i.e. Garibaldi in Italy, the French at the beginning) but I do not subscribe to any sinister Freemasonic conspiracy in the modern day on that level. The Freemasons reached their peak in those centuries not now.

Having said that, I agree with the head of our Church that a Catholic cannot be a Freemason based on Masonic ritual. I know higher-degree Masons personally, some in my further family: they are not Satanists, but the ritual they go through is incompatible. My 2nd Uncle would not disclose the Grand Omnific Masonic Name of God to me, even though I knew it to be an amalgamation of pagan deities with Jahweh called JAHBULON, that each Royal Arch Mason (self-styled supreme degree) could not pronounce on pain of decapitation. He wouldn't ever utter a consonant, because he actually had sworn to keep this secret in a Masonic Temple, before a Holy Royal Arch. As a Catholic we are only allowed worship of One God. The fact that Freemasons, though Christians, may top off their lives with the square and compass on their and their wive's tombstones sort of shows it is properly a religion when the Masonic ritualist reads the Masonic funeral benediction before burial. (but now we're off track). There is no current grand Masonic conspiracy, believe me. The world is complicated enough. They have ideals of course but their ranks are not swelling like once.

Your statements that Protestants are not enemies of Freemasonry is patently false. More and more Christian denominations are seeing the incompatibility of Masonic ritual with Christianity.

Here is where the head of the Anglican community stood at first in condemning Freemasonry:
http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/...y604770528.asp

Here is where the Sydney Anglican communion condemned Freemasonry:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/...631355799.html

Here is the Lutheran Condemnation of Freemasonry which goes into much detail:
http://www.orlutheran.com/masoniclodge.html

Here is a Presbyterian Church:
http://www.auburnavenue.org/official...reemasonry.htm

The point is: there is just not light and darkness in this world but there are shades in between and one must be quite careful in making blanket accusations: well this revolution and that were all caused by Satan. Yes, as Catholics, we believe Satan works against human souls' and the Church's destruction but one has to be careful not getting lost among the trees in seeing the forest.

The Protestants, believe me, after having read through also the Anglican Church's working group and Methodist Church working groups condemnations of Freemasonry are really giving the Masonic ritual a once-over. For the Catholic, the way is through Jesus (however Jesus achieves this) and hence no room for prayers to other nameless or named deities in services conducted in Temples with specific prayers, benedictions and initiations before "Holy?" Arches.

[KyivAndrew]

Originally Posted by leopolis1

Satan prefers 17's in his struggle against the Church:
1517 - reformation
1717 - beginning of freemasonery
1917 - communist revolution in Russia

The goal of the French revolution was obviously to destroy the Catholic Church because masons hate the CC and God's people on earth.

Well, I'm not into numerology much but in speaking of 1917, the Russian Revolution, one must be clear that in that year, there were two Russian Revolutions, the second was more of a Bolshevik coup d'etat. In February 1917, the first Russian Revolution occurred in the face of the great losses suffered in World War One. The Czar abdicated. A Provisional Government took charge. It was at this stage that some liberal Russian freemasons were involved in governing, probably people like Alexander Kerensky. By October, things took a swing for the worse as the terrorist-Bolsheviks seized power and sent the Provisional Government and masons like Kerensky running. There were no Freemasons among the Bolshevik elite. They were communists pure and simple and outlawed Freemasonry along of course with all the Soviet Union's religious institutions (Orthodox Church, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim) which would not cater to the Party's subservience. Neither Stalin nor Lenin was a Freemason. The Bolshevik Revolution was NOT a Masonic Revolution. However, if you want to say it was a Satanic Revolution, judging by its incredible death record, well I say why not?

The goal of the French Revolution was to destroy the ancien regime, and insofar as the Catholic Church as it then stood (especially the hierarchy) was tied to it, then that particular Church was to change with the overthrow of the ancien regime in many revolutionaries' eyes. From there the goals of the French Revolution twist here and there from Girondins, to Jacobins, and back to the right, and then Napoleon. So it is a rather complex question. Getting late.

God Bless.

[Kaninchen]

I love 'alternative histories' as much as anybody else but, errrm, err, Russia was an Orthodox country not a Catholic country.

[KyivAndrew]

Originally Posted by Kaninchen

I love 'alternative histories' as much as anybody else but, errrm, err, Russia was an Orthodox country not a Catholic country.

Yeah, I don't love "alternative histories" because I feel like Don Qiuxote fighting windmills. Yes, Russia was an Orthodox country, but in the tsarist days parts of Poland had been part of tsarist Russia and there were Roman Catholic Churches in Right-Bank Ukraine under the tsars as the Poles had always formed a large segment of that population; these were also included I believe: a small minority. A History of a region whose borders changed quite rapidly. I'm getting typos now, so life force seems to be pointing to shuteye.

[Kaninchen]

Originally Posted by KyivAndrew

Yeah, I don't love "alternative histories" because I feel like Don Qiuxote fighting windmills. Yes, Russia was an Orthodox country, but in the tsarist days parts of Poland had been part of tsarist Russia and there were Roman Catholic Churches in Right-Bank Ukraine under the tsars as the Poles had always formed a large segment of that population; these were also included I believe: a small minority. A History of a region whose borders changed quite rapidly. I'm getting typos now, so life force seems to be pointing to shuteye.

I'd have thought Satan would have chosen targets that had a lot of Catholics and what about the parts of Poland that were in Germany and Austria? Had Satan no foresight about the fact that Poland would end up being a separate (very Catholic) country within no time at all (or perhaps Satan was favoring the Catholic Church over the Orthodox because a very Catholic country was going to emerge out of the death of Empires).

No, this "1917 was Satan out to destroy the Catholic Church" is a heck of a stretch really - like saying that the 'Islamic Revolution' in Iran was to destroy the Catholic Church because there were a few dozen Catholics in various foreign embassies, or whatever.

I'd suggest this particular 'alternative history' line is a little bonkers even for 'alternative history'.

[distracted]

Originally Posted by leopolis1

You are right. Not surprisingly freemasons (satanists in fact) chose Catholic France as a right place for the revolution. Protestants were not (and are not) enemies of freemasons, they cooperate together against the enemy - the CC - the true Church of Jesus Christ. Satan hates the CC beacuse She keeps the right teaching. Protestants don't. They have no Eucharist, no sacrament of reconcilliation, no Fatima, etc... Instead they have free interpretation of the Scripture - it means they can do whatever they want (I know it's ridiculous but protestantism is not my idea - in satanism it's very similar - you are your own lords. That's why there are thusands of protestant "popes" and they obviously believe in their own infallibility.
Satan prefers 17's in his struggle against the Church:
1517 - reformation
1717 - beginning of freemasonery
1917 - communist revolution in Russia

The goal of the French revolution was obviously to destroy the Catholic Church because masons hate the CC and God's people on earth. It's quite simple. We know they can't achieve it as we have the promise of Jesus: the gates of hell cannot prevail against the Church built on the rock (Peter). Catholic Church is the bride - she will remain always until the second coming when Jesus - the bridegroom comes.

enjoyed reading this.. and i totally agree. The Tsar of Russia was murdered with his wife and children in 1917.. (etc) Why the fixation on 17, though???

as stated before, M. Luther unleashed the devil (Hell) on Earth with his so-called Reformation..which i call Deformation... and you are so right that with Protestant beliefs one is (seemingly) free to do whatever he wants..

the scary thing is that many priests introduce Protestant ideas (heresy) into the Mass... the congregation..

and a lot of Catholics just sit there and take it...

our most important job is to spread Catholicism... i feel it is the greatest act of charity we can do in this sick worlld..

[KyivAndrew]

Originally Posted by distracted

The Tsar of Russia was murdered with his wife and children in 1917.. .

WRONG. The Tsar was murdered with his family in the summer of 1918.

I condemn Bolshevik regicide, but the fact remains the Russian tsar was an autocrat to such an extent that even the Royal Families to which he was related (i.e. English monarchy) refused to give him and his family sanctuary because of his despotic history.

Do you know who some of the enemies of the tsar were? I will tell you: Catholic Poles who lived in those parts of Poland that were under the tsar's rule and rebelled against Tsardom and Catholic Ukrainians whose churches had been wiped out earlier in the 19th Century by the tsars on Right-Bank Ukraine. So which one is it distracted? You are claiming the truth of the Catholic Church in the same post you are defending a monarch who discriminated against and punished Catholic people?

Who else was not enamored of the Tsars? The Jewish people of the tsarist empire who endured tsarist inspired pogroms at the hands of the Black Hundreds.

Here is Harvard historian Richard Pipes in Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime:

"Tsarist patrimonialism rested on four pillars: one, autocracy, that is, personal rule unconstrained by either constitution or representative bodies; two, the autocrat's ownership of the country's resources, which is to say, the virtual absence of private property; three, the autocrat's right to demand unlimited services from his subjects; and four, state control of information. A comparison of tsarist rule at its zenith with the Communist regime as it looked by the time of Lenin's death reveals unmistakable affinities."

In any event, if we delve into the Russian Revolution too much, we are moving away from the original subject, which was the French Revolution.

God Bless.

[KyivAndrew]

Interesting quote from today's Pope Benedict on the French Revolution and Vatican II from an article by theologian Edward Oakes in the religious journal First Things:


"Among these undeniable innovations [in Vatican II], Benedict above all stressed Vatican II's Decree on Religious Liberty (Dignitatis Humanae). Frankly admitting that Vatican II broke with the "fortress mentality" set in motion by Pius IX's open hostility to the modern world and by his condemnation of religious liberty in his Syllabus of Errors (1864), Benedict explained the reasons for the Council's departure from that teaching:

'In the 19th century under Pius IX, the clash between the Church's faith and a radical liberalism . . . had elicited from the Church a bitter and radical condemnation of this spirit of the modern age. . . . In the meantime, however, the modern age had also experienced developments. People came to realize that the American Revolution was offering a model of a modern state that differed from the theoretical model with radical tendencies that had emerged during the second phase of the French Revolution.' (HH Benedict)


In other words, circumstances change, and the Church must change with them—but not her identity. Granted, discerning the difference between the need to change in order to fit changed circumstances, and the simultaneous need to preserve the Church's perennial identity, is not easy. The case of religious liberty is ideal for seeing this discernment at work, especially since it is the one that most bothers the Lefebvrist schismatics. But in taking up this issue, the pope is blunt about the volte-face effected by the Council:

With [its] Decree on Religious Freedom the Second Vatican Council, by recognizing and making its own an essential principle of the modern state, has recovered the deepest patrimony of the Church. By so doing she can be conscious of being in full harmony with the teaching of Jesus himself, as well as with the Church of the martyrs of all time. The ancient Church naturally prayed for the emperors and political leaders out of duty; but while she prayed for the emperors, she refused to worship them and thereby clearly rejected the religion of the state. The martyrs of the early Church died for their faith in that God who was revealed in Jesus Christ, and for this very reason they also died for freedom of conscience and the freedom to profess one's own faith-a profession that no state can impose but which, instead, can only be claimed with God's grace in freedom of conscience."

Full article deals with other subject matter but this citation I believe is apropos
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesqua...n-ii-hermeneut

[KyivAndrew]

The famous G.K. Chesterton, Catholic apologist in England during the first half of the 20th Century did not call for the re-establishment of the ancien régime in perhaps his most famous work Orthodoxy. On the contrary and surprisingly, he was a lifelong defender of the French Revolution. Despite its many horrors, including the ravages of the Jacobins, Chesterton believed that these eighteenth-century revolutionaries erred in the right direction—namely, toward the dignity and equality of every human being before God. Such radical equality is backward- no less than forward-looking. It may be located, paradoxically, in tradition, which Chesterton famously defines it as “an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.” This is what Chesterton believed.

Russell Hittinger, Professor of Catholic Studies in another article from the religious journal First Things writes effectively that:

"The Reformation and the religious wars, culminating in the 1648 treaties of Westphalia, destroyed the old medieval common law of Christendom by creating a system of states having diverse confessional allegiances. A new common law, however, evolved among the *peoples under Catholic rule. It was built on a complex and evolving set of treaties, informal agreements, and legal fictions through which the Church conceded to Catholic sovereigns rights over many aspects of ecclesiastical life—in exchange for which those sovereigns protected the Church from schism and supplied the resources for missions across the world. The sovereigns were deemed junior apostles, entitled to rule “in trust” the everyday life of the Church in Europe and her colonies.

Catholicism thus developed a remarkable symbiosis with the new system of modern sovereignty—so long as it was in the hands of Catholic families. This political system is what writers in the nineteenth century called the ancien régime, because Catholics had no living memory of any other order. But it was, in fact, neither ancient nor medieval. It was, instead, something quite modern—and for the Church it worked, off and on, reasonably well.

The French Revolution, however, upended this modern system of religious and political Christendom. France's 1790 Civil Constitution of the Clergy gave church governance not to the mischievous yet familiar Catholic families but to the nation, and this French model soon spread elsewhere, particularly to the *former European colonies in Latin America. The *clergy became civil servants, elected by democratic vote. In other words, modernity saw the transference of rights that had once belonged to the Church itself. Catholic kings received those rights first, but the nation-states would soon inherit them—nation-states that were, as often as not, governed by a doctrine of often anti-Catholic laicism."

Interesting take this on the ancien regime: http://www.firstthings.com/article/2...modernities-46

[KyivAndrew]

Joseph Naumann, archbishop of Kansas City writes, and probably spot-on here that:

"In the Church's liturgical calendar we find many illustrations of saints who exercised civil authority: St. Louis IX of France, St. Elizabeth of Portugal, St. Henry of Bavaria, St. Margaret of Scotland, St. Stephen of Hungary, St. Wenceslas of Bohemia. We see in these men and women examples of both the positive impact of Christian faith on civil rulers and faith-filled leaders of state on the Church.

Unfortunately, there are perhaps even more examples of the close association of Church leaders with political power creating an environment for abuses. The French Revolution and its repercussions on the life of the Church in France is perhaps the most dramatic example of the impairment of the mission of the Church because of the close association with some of its leaders with abusive royal power."

Pretty succinct from http://www.firstthings.com/onthesqua...cs-and-faithfu


Here, however, I quote a more severely anti-revolutionary piece from John Zmirak in the Catholic Crisis magazine:

"Bastille Day marks the beginning of the greatest organized persecution of the Church since the Emperor Diocletian, and the explosion onto the world of ideologies that would poison the next two centuries: socialism and radical nationalism. Between them, those two political movements racked up quite a body count: In his 1997 book Death By Government, scholar R. J. Rummel pointed out that

during the first 88 years of this century, almost 170,000,000 men, women, and children have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed, or worked to death; or buried alive, drowned, hung, bombed, or killed in any other of the myriad ways governments have inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens or foreigners.

And the first such modern genocide in the West took place in France, beginning in 1793. It was undertaken by modern, progressive apostles of Enlightenment and aimed at Catholic peasants, and by its end up to 300,000 civilians had been killed by the armies of the Republic.

It was ordinary peasants of the Vendée and Brittany regions who rose up in that year against the middle-class radicals in Paris who controlled the country. The ideologues of the Revolution had already


* executed the king and queen, and left their young son to die of disease in prison;
* declared a revolutionary "war of liberation" against most of the other countries in Europe;
* seized all property of the Church, expelling thousands of monks, priests, and nuns to fend for themselves, then sold the property to their cronies to raise money for their wars;
* ordered all clergy to swear allegiance to the French state instead of the pope; and
* launched the first universal conscription in history, drafting ordinary people (most of them devout peasants bewildered by the slogans that held sway in Paris) to fight for the Revolution."

http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/ind...ge=0&Itemid=48
This possibly evens out all viewpoints towards some truth I hope.

[distracted]

Originally Posted by KyivAndrew

, ipso facto, he was a Satanist and that America was founded by a Satanist? Please let's be reasonable.

, . My 2nd Uncle would not disclose the Grand Omnific Masonic Name of God to me, even though I knew it to be an amalgamation of pagan deities with Jahweh called JAHBULON, that each Royal Arch Mason (self-styled supreme degree) could not pronounce on pain of decapitation. .

you don't think this is satanic??? being decapitated for... such a slip????

[BillP]

Originally Posted by distracted

what is a good bk to read on the origins of the Fr Rev??

The best single volume history of the French Revolution is Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution by Simon Schama.

[BillP]

Originally Posted by JimG

The French Revolution was a product of "The Enlightenment." But sending 17,000 people to the guillotine does not seem too enlightened.
As true enlightenment men, the revolutionaries hated above all, the monarchy--any monarchy--and the Church.

Do you believe in the divine right of kings?

Do you believe that you, by accident of birth, are inferior to others who were, through accident of birth, born to a higher station than you?

Do you believe the destiny and future of your children should be constrained by the social position you were born into?

Do you believe that the King is above the law, that only we as his subjects are constrained by it?

If you believe these things, then by all means, denigrate the Enlightenment. If not, get down on your knees and than God that you live in a time and place heavily influenced by the Enlightenment, where free men don't cower before Kings or aristocrats.

Originally Posted by JimG

I can't recall the name of the person who said the goal was to strangle the last king with the entrails of the last priest.

General attributed to Diderot, but the actual quote was:

"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."

It is quite a statement on the corruption of many, many Church officials (high and low) that masses of the French peasantry agreed with that sentiment. But these were, largely venal and corrupt men, who were more intent on lining their own pockets then doing God's work.

Originally Posted by JimG

It's surprising that the American revolution was comparatively non-bloody, as it was also somewhat a product of the Enlightenment. But at least many of the founders here were Deists. They did believe in a God, and didn't insist on the total elimination of religion.

I don't know what gave you the idea that he American Revolution was "comparatively non-bloody". During the conflict more than 50,000 were killed (25,000 American, 20,000 Brits and 7,500 Germans) and thats just the soldiers! No one really knows how many civilians or French were killed. Nor does it count the tens of thousands of Loyalists who went into exile after the War.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America..._War#Loyalists
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyalist_(American_Revolution)#Emigratio n

[distracted]

Originally Posted by KyivAndrew

WRONG. The Tsar was murdered with his family in the summer of 1918.

I condemn Bolshevik regicide, but the fact remains the Russian tsar was an autocrat to such an extent that even the Royal Families to which he was related (i.e. English monarchy) refused to give him and his family sanctuary because of his despotic history.

Do you know who some of the enemies of the tsar were? I will tell you: Catholic Poles who lived in those parts of Poland that were under the tsar's rule and rebelled against Tsardom and Catholic Ukrainians whose churches had been wiped out earlier in the 19th Century by the tsars on Right-Bank Ukraine. So which one is it distracted? You are claiming the truth of the Catholic Church in the same post you are defending a monarch who discriminated against and punished Catholic people?

Who else was not enamored of the Tsars? The Jewish people of the tsarist empire who endured tsarist inspired pogroms at the hands of the Black Hundreds.

Here is Harvard historian Richard Pipes in Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime:

"Tsarist patrimonialism rested on four pillars: one, autocracy, that is, personal rule unconstrained by either constitution or representative bodies; two, the autocrat's ownership of the country's resources, which is to say, the virtual absence of private property; three, the autocrat's right to demand unlimited services from his subjects; and four, state control of information. A comparison of tsarist rule at its zenith with the Communist regime as it looked by the time of Lenin's death reveals unmistakable affinities."

In any event, if we delve into the Russian Revolution too much, we are moving away from the original subject, which was the French Revolution.

God Bless.

you don't have to get so rude...

the book i read said he was executed in 1917... and i know absolutely nothing of the other things you go on about here...

so it depends on wht books you read what you believe (or think about believing ) and i have only read one bk on the Russian Rev.. so blame the guy who wrote that book becasue he didn't mention any of wht you say here...

[distracted]

Originally Posted by KyivAndrew

. Despite its many horrors, including the ravages of the Jacobins, Chesterton believed that these eighteenth-century revolutionaries erred in the right direction—namely, toward the dignity and equality of every human being before God.

oh yeah.. really dignified and equal... to cut off every other citizen's head.. with no trial or avery unjust trial (meaning No trial)... yeah... we definitely need more of this kind of freedom. And i am having a hard time believing a lot of what you say anyway because i have read books not even written (that i know of) by Catholics who say such things as that Marie Antoinette gave food to the poor... etc... She was a Christian , for crying out loud... not perfect but i know that she and her husband the king and her children did not deserve what thye got.

..Some equality... to even kill the children of the "tyrants"... [