Let the Sword First Strike the Person, and then the Error He Defends

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Let the Sword First Strike the Person, and then the Error He Defends

TIA | November 20, 2010


"It is all well enough to make war on abstract doctrines," we often hear people say. “But, in combating error, even when it is very evident, it is wrong and even uncharitable to make attacks upon the persons who uphold such error.” This is a liberal position, Fr. Felix Sará y Salvani teaches us in his book Liberalism Is A Sin. To the contrary, it is often not only good to make a personal attack, but at times even indispensable and meritorious before God and men.

Fr. Felix Sardá y Salvani

Catholic apologists are often accused of entering the personal arena during debates. And when Liberals and those tainted with Liberalism hurl this accusation against one of us, they imagine that this charge is enough to condemn us.

But they deceive themselves. We are not so easily removed from the scene. We have reason – and quite substantial reason – on our side. In order to combat and discredit false ideas, we must make them look abhorrent and despicable to the same multitude they tried to convince and seduce. A disease cannot be separated from the persons who have it. The cholera threatening a country came in the persons infected with it. If we wish to exclude it, we must exclude them.

Now it so happens that ideas cannot be sustained by themselves in the air, nor do they spread or propagate by themselves. Left to themselves, they would never produce all the evil that harms society. It is only when they are applied by those who conceive them that they have an effect. Ideas are like the arrows and the bullets that would harm no one if they were not shot from the bow or the gun. It is the archer and the gunner, therefore, who should be the first target in our sight. Save for them, the fire would kill no one. Any other method of waging war, be it liberal or not, does not make sense.

The authors and propagators of heretical doctrines are soldiers with poisoned weapons in their hands. Their arms are the books, the newspapers, the public speeches and their personal influence. It is not enough to dodge the bullets they fire. The first thing necessary is to make the shooter himself ineffective so that he can do no more mischief.

It is, therefore, perfectly proper not only to discredit the book, journal or lecture of the enemy, but it can also be proper to discredit his person. For in warfare the principal element of the combat is the person engaged, just as the gunner is the principal factor in an artillery fight and not the cannon, powder or bomb.

It is thus lawful in certain cases to publicly display the infamy of a Liberal opponent, to present his customs to contempt, to drag his name in the mire. Yes, this is fully permissible, permissible in prose, in verse, in caricature, in either a serious or a light vein, by every means and method within reach. The only care we should take is to not to employ a lie in the service of justice. This, never. Under no pretext may we sully the truth, even to the dotting of an i. ….

The Fathers of the Church support this thesis. The very titles of their works clearly show that in their combats against heresies, their first blow was at the heresiarchs. Almost all the titles of St. Augustine’s works bear the name of the author of the heresy against which they are written: Adversus (Against) Fortunatum, Adversus Manichaean, Adversus Adamanctum, Adversus Felicem, Adversus Secundinum. Or, Quis fuerit Petriamus (Who is Petrianus?), De gestis Pelagii (About the Deeds of Pelagius), Quis fuerit Julianus, etc.

Thus we see that the greater part of the polemics of the great Augustine was personal, aggressive, and biographical as well as doctrinal, a hand-to-hand struggle with the heretic as well as the heresy. We could say the same about all the other Church Fathers.

What right do the Liberals have to impose on us the new obligation of fighting error only in the abstract and of lavishing smiles and flattery on them? We, the Ultramontanes, will fight our battles according to Catholic tradition and defend the faith as it has always been defended in the Church of God. When it strikes, let the sword of the Catholic polemist wound, and when it wounds, wound mortally. This is the only real and efficacious way to combat!


(Felix Sardá y Salvani, El Liberalism es pecado, Barcelona: 1960, pp. 60-62

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Famous Theologians Concur: The Faithful Must Resist Bad Shepherds

TIA | April 16, 2011

In response to the great interest our readers are showing for the foundation of our position of resistance against the progressivist authority, we bring more famous authors who counsel Catholics to respectfully resist the bad religious authority.


Fr. Francisco Suarez, S.J.

“If [the Pope] gives an order contrary to good customs, he should not be obeyed; if he attempts to do something manifestly opposed to justice and the common good, it will be licit to resist him; if he attacks by force, by force he can be repelled, with a moderation appropriate to a just defense” (De Fide, disp. X, sec. VI, n.16, in Opera omnia, Paris: Vivès, 1958, vol. 12, p. 321).


Fr. Cornelius a Lapide, S.J.

The renowned Jesuit shows that St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Bede, St. Anselm and other Fathers teach that St. Paul resisted St. Peter publicly “so that the public scandal given by St. Peter was amended by a likewise public reprehension” (Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram, Ad Galatas 2:11, Paris: Ludovicus Vivès, 1876, vol. 18, p. 528).

Later on, a Lapide argues that “superiors can be reprehended, with humble charity, by their inferiors in the defense of truth; that is what St. Augustine (Epistula 19), St. Cyprian, St. Gregory, St. Thomas and others cited above declare about this passage (Gal 2:11). They clearly teach that St. Peter, being a superior, was reprehended by St. Paul. ... With good reason, therefore, St. Gregory said: ‘Peter kept quiet so that, being first in the Apostolic Hierarchy, he would also be first in humility’ (Homilia 18 in Ezechielem).

"And St. Augustine wrote: ‘By teaching that superiors should not refuse to be reprehended by inferiors, St. Peter gave posterity a rarer and holier example than that of St. Paul as he taught that, in the defense of truth and with charity, inferiors may have the audacity to resist superiors without fear’ (Epistula 19 ad Hieronyrnum).”


Dom Prosper Guéranger, Abbot of Solesmes

“When the shepherd turns into a wolf, it falls to the flock first to defend itself. Doctrine normally flows from the Bishops down to the faithful people, and subjects should not judge their chiefs. But, in the treasure of Revelation, there are certain points that every Christian necessarily knows and must obligatorily defend” (L’année liturgique - Le temps de la septuagesime, Tours: Maison Mame, 1932, pp. 340-341).


Frs. Francisco Wernz S.J. & Pedro Vidal, S.J.

These famous theologians at the beginning of the 20th century, citing Suarez, admit the licitness of resisting a bad Pope: “The just means to be employed against a bad Pope are, according to Suarez (Defensio Fidei Catholicae, lib. IV, cap. 6, nn. 17-18), a more abundant assistance of the grace of God, the special protection of one’s Guardian Angel, the prayer of the Universal Church, admonishment or fraternal correction in private or even in public, as well as the legitimate self-defense against aggression, whether physical or moral” (Ius canonicum, Rome: Aedes Universitatis Gregorianae, 1927, vol. II. p. 436).


Fr. Antonio Peinador, C.M.F.

This known pre-Vatican II Spanish theologian adopts the sentences of those who preceded him: “‘Also a subject may be obliged to fraternally correct his superior’ (Summa Theologiae, II-II, q.33, a.4). For also a superior can be spiritually indigent, and nothing prevents him from being liberated from such indigence by his subjects. Nevertheless, ‘in the correction in which subjects reprehend their Prelates, they must act in a proper manner, that is, without insolence and harshness but with meekness and reverence’ (ad 2)” (Cursus brevior Theologiae Moralis, Madrid: Coculsa, 1946, vol. I, p. 287).

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The Sin of Being Silent

TIA | January 1, 2011

With the growing apostasy in the Church, we see many “conservatives” and “traditionalists” who avoid criticizing Prelates, and even Popes, and thus become accomplices to the apostasy. They flee their obligation of warning others about the gravity of this situation.

To reinforce the importance of this duty, we present today the words of Friar Vincent of Beauvais, a Dominican scholar often consulted by St. Louis IX of France. This monk was the author of a comprehensive compendium of all the knowledge of his time regarding doctrine, history and nature entitled the Speculum Maius - The Great Mirror. The words below were taken from this famous work.

Vincent of Beauvais

Dealing with the peccatum taciturnitatis (sin of being silent) in general, Vincent de Beauvais explains this grave moral fault: “Next we should consider taciturnity. For it is known that just as an excess of loquacity is a vice, so also is, at times, excessive taciturnity. Indeed, ‘There is a time to keep silence and a time to speak’ (Eccles 3:7); St. Isidore: ‘The tongue must be watched, but not inflexibly arrested.’ For it is a vice, by keeping quiet, to allow someone unworthy or unfit to be chosen for promotions and honors, or permit someone worthy to lose his dignity, goods or honor.

“The same can be said if, in meetings of the council, you keep quiet out of ignorance or malice and thus withhold the truth from the other advisers. Likewise, during a court hearing, if you see someone make a fraudulent accusation or be unjustly condemned, you will sin. And if you fail to reprehend the detractors in conversations defaming others by neither excusing nor praising the person defamed, you will sin by remaining silent. Likewise, when you perceive that a word to edify, instruct, exhort or correct someone is necessary, you commit a sin if you withhold that wholesome advice. Hence Isaiah exclaimed: ‘Woe is me, because I have held my peace’ (6:5). The same is said in Ecclesiasticus: ‘And refrain not to speak in the time of salvation’ (4:28).”

This command is directed primarily to the Hierarchs and clerks who keep quiet. Nevertheless, their defection obliges all laymen to speak up, since Vincent de Beauvais, cited below, uses the adverb especially when referring to the Prelates, which means that those who are not vested with priestly dignity have an analogous duty.

“This is obligatory especially for Prelates and all those who direct or take care of souls. This is clearly stated in Exodus: 28, whose precept called for placing little bells alternating with pomegranates hanging from the priestly chasubles so that the priest would be heard as he entered or left the sanctuary and thus would not die. St. Gregory explains this by saying: ‘The priest who enters will die if the sound is not heard, for he will attract for himself the wrath of the Eternal Judge if the sound of preaching does not come from him.’ Likewise, Ezekiel, 33:6: ‘And if the watchman sees the sword coming, and sounds not the trumpet: and the people look not to themselves, and the sword comes, and cuts off a soul from among them: he indeed is taken away in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at the hand of the watchman.’”


(Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum quadruplex sive speculum maius,
Graz, Akademische Druck-Verlagsanstalt, 1964, col. 1228)

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One Who Is Silent before Error Is Repulsive to God

TIA | March 10, 2018

Pope Leo XIII exhorted us in Sapientiae Christinae of January 10, 1890, to defend and proclaim the truth of the Catholic Faith at all times without fail. To safeguard the integrity of the Faith, he insists, is a duty that belongs to each one of the faithful and not just those with power of rule. Further, one who keeps silence in face of error is repulsive to God and unworthy of eternal salvation. These are important lessons for the progressivist clergy and laymen in our days.

Pope Leo XIII

But in the same matter, touching Christian Faith, there are other duties whose exact and religious observance necessary at all times in the interest of eternal salvation, become more especially so in these our days.

Amid such reckless and widespread folly of opinion it is, as we have said, the office of the Church to undertake the defense of truth and uproot errors from the mind, and this charge has to be at all times sacredly observed by her, seeing that the honor of God and the salvation of men are confided to her keeping.

But when necessity compels, not only those who are invested with power of rule are bound to safeguard the integrity of the Faith, but, as St. Thomas maintains, each one is under obligation to show forth his faith either to instruct and encourage others of the faithful or to repel the attacks of unbelievers.

To recoil before an enemy or to keep silence when from all sides such clamor is raised against truth, belongs to a man either devoid of character or one who entertains doubt as to the truth of what he professes to believe. In both cases such mode of behaving is shameful and is insulting to God, and both are incompatible with salvation of mankind. This kind of conduct is profitable only to the enemies of Faith, for nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good.

Moreover, lack of vigor on the part of Christians is so much the more blameworthy, as not seldom little would be needed on their part to bring to naught false charges and refute erroneous opinions. And, by always exerting themselves more strenuously, they might count upon being successful.


Leo XIII, Encyclical Sapientiae Christianae of January 10, 1890, n. 14

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The Church’s Rigor against Heresies

TIA | June 28, 2008


In today’s general atmosphere of ecumenism, it seems quite opportune to recall the third canon of the Fourth Lateran Council that rigorously excommunicates the crimes of heresy and suspicion of heresy. It magnificently reminds us of the militancy of the Catholic Church, which has been fraudulently concealed after Vatican II. This canon is like a stroke of lightning in the sky that purifies the atmosphere and allows us to see in the dark storm.

Fourth Lateran Council (1215)

We excommunicate and anathematize every heresy that raises itself up against this holy, orthodox and Catholic Faith that we have just expounded. We condemn all heretics under any name whatsoever they may use. For, if their faces are different, their tails are all tied together by their pride. Once condemned, let them be handed over to the secular powers to receive their due punishment; or if they are members of the clergy, let them first be degraded from their orders. The goods of the lay heretics are to be confiscated, and that of clerics to be given to the churches from which they received their stipends.

Those who are only found suspect of heresy are to be excommunicated, unless they prove their innocence by an appropriate penance … and if they persist in this state for one year, they are to be condemned as heretics.

Let the secular authorities be warned and, if necessary, compelled by ecclesiastical censure, to publicly swear that they will expel from their lands all heretics designated by the Church. If a temporal lord, once admonished, neglects to purge his lands of them, he will be excommunicated by the Metropolitan and other co-provincials. If he refuses to give satisfaction within one year, the Sovereign Pontiff will be warned of this so that he can release his vassals of their oath of fidelity and offer his lands to be conquered by Catholics so that they, after expelling the heretics, may possess and preserve them in the purity of the Faith, preserving the right of the overlord [suzerain of the punished one] provided that he raises no obstacles to the execution of this decree. The same law is to be observed regarding those who do not have an overlord.

Catholics who take the cross for the expulsion of heretics shall enjoy the same indulgence as is granted to those who go to the fight in the Holy Land.


(Apud Rohrbacher, Histoire Universelle de l’Eglise Catholique, 1885, vol. 7.1.71, p. 385)

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How To Deal with a Heretic

TIA | June 9, 2007

In an epoch when Popes and Bishops protect the heresiarchs of the past and tell us to consider heretics as "brethren," it seems opportune to remind our readers of how a great saint, St. Bernard, advised a French Prelate to withdraw any support from Arnold of Brescia, a known heretic of his time. Below are excerpts from his letter.

St. Bernard

Arnold of Brescia is all honey and sweetness in his words, but mortally venomous in his doctrine. On his face he shows the simplicity of the dove, but he has the poisoned tail of the scorpion. His homeland [Brescia] expelled him as a man ejects his vomit; Rome had horror to host him; France was indisposed to receive him, Germany could not but abominate him, and to this date Italy refuses to receive him back.

Despite all this, it has been said that you received him. Take care that you do not play his game and, with your authority, give him wings to fly in order to continue to do harm. He has both a great skill and the firm purpose to do evil. If to these two things, you add your favor, we will have the triple-braided rope that is difficult to break, and you cannot imagine the evil he is capable of doing.

If it is true that you hosted him, I believe it is because either you do not know him well, or what is more probable, knowing who he is, you hope to change and convert him. I hope this will be so! God grant that you change this hard rock into a son of Abraham! What a pleasing gift you would offer to the Church if you could present to her as a vase of honor the one who until now has been a vase of ignominy!

You could try to do this. However, any prudent man would be careful not to surpass the number of such attempts of conversion that the Apostle recommended when he said: “Warn a divisive person once, and then warn him a second time. After that, have nothing to do with him. You may be sure that such a man is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned." (Titus 3:10-11)

On the other hand, treating him in a familiar way, admitting him to your friendship, and even seating him at your table would be a sure sign of your protection, showing that you cover the enemy with strong armor. With this, he will achieve his goal and, disguised as your close friend, he will easily convince souls [to adopt his bad position] … Even if he removes his mask and publicly propagates his pernicious errors, who will dare to contradict him, since he is your friend? …

Once you have read everything in this letter, I expect from your uprightness and prudence that you will do that which is in the interest of the Church.

With great esteem and friendship, I am, with all devotion,

Bernard of Clairvaux



(Letter 169 in Obras completas del Doctor Melifluo, San Bernardo, Abad de Claraval, Barcelona: Rafael Casulleras, 1929, vol. V, p. 408).

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Christ Did Not Bring Peace, but the Sword

TIA | May 19, 2007

"You are too controversial!"  "Why don't you be a little more mainstream?" "You are raising too much hatred!"  We are receiving more and more of these liberal and progressivist exclamations with regard to [...] stances on religion, history, international affairs, the environment, etc.

We are just trying to express Catholic thinking on these topics. If such thinking is controversial, then so be it. It is difficult for a true Catholic not to be controversial, since he is following the steps of his Divine Master, Who did not come to bring peace, but the sword. The words below by the famous commentator of the Gospel, Fr. Louis Claude Fillion, could not be more opportune to answer such objections.

Fr. Louis Claude Fillion

Our Lord Jesus Christ affirms in the Gospel of St. Matthew:

“Do not think that I come to bring the peace upon earth: I came not to send peace but the sword. For I come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and the man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. He, who loves father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he, who loves son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me. And he, who does not take up his cross and follow Me, is not worthy of Me” (10: 34-38).

The sword, this terrible weapon that symbolizes war à outrance [to the extreme], is placed by the Messiah into the family, into the entire world. Is there anything that can appear stranger and more unexpected than this? Wasn’t the One anticipated by the Prophets supposed to present Himself as a Prince of Peace carrying an olive branch, the pledge of happiness and security? Wasn't He the One at whose birth the Angels sang "peace be on earth" (Luk 2: 14)?

If Jesus Christ affirms, however, that He came to bring war and not peace, it is not because His coming was a direct cause of fighting and dissension for the world , but rather that fighting and dissension would be the natural consequence of the establishment of His kingdom. Christ Himself cannot offer the kiss of peace until the passions and vices have been cut down with the sword.

Moreover, as He said, when His Gospel enters a family, it necessarily causes violent separations, which can even reach hatred on the part of the unbelieving members, as if the bonds of blood were cut.

No one more than Jesus understands how to defend and support these sacred bonds. Nonetheless, the salvation brought by Him, faith in Him, and love for Him must prevail over all else. Anyone who were to think and act differently would be unworthy of Him. Three times he says, Non est Me dignum [he is unworthy of Me]. What strong words! What an elevated concept of His Own nature and His divine mission, the One who used them with such vigor and panache had! Incidentally, it is on this occasion that Jesus presents Himself as the universal center of hearts and minds: Everything in Him, everything for Him.


(L.C. Fillion, Vie de Notre Seigneur Jèsus Christ – Exposé historique, critique and apologètique,
Paris: Letouzey and Ané, 1925, vol. 2, p. 413).

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Catholic Intransigence Is Tantamount to Catholic Charity

TIA | April 21, 2007


In the pacifist world of our days, in which any more energetic defense of Catholic principles is viewed as inappropriate and anti-evangelical, it is opportune to remember what the Church taught us about Catholic intransigence. This is the great virtue that made the Lamb of God give His Blood to the last drop for us. It is also the virtue that inspired the glorious Crusades and many other episodes of Catholic combativity over the centuries.

The following considerations were taken from the book Liberalism is a Sin, by Fr. Felix Sardá y Salvany. This book was carefully examined by the Sacred Congregation of the Index, which on January 10, 1887 declared: "Not only is nothing found contrary to sound doctrine, but its author merits great praise for his exposition and defense of the sound doctrine therein set forth with solidity, order and lucidity."

Fr. Felix Sardá y Salvany

Supreme Catholic intransigence is nothing but supreme Catholic charity. This supreme charity is practiced in relation to our neighbor when, for his good, the guilty neighbor is crossed, humiliated, upset and chastised.

This supreme charity is practiced in relation to the common good when, to protect another from the contagion of evil, intransigence is used to denounce the promoters of evil, unmasking them as wicked and perverse and holding them up to public contempt, horror and execration. If it is possible, the one exercising intransigence should request the zeal of the public force [police] to contain and punish these evildoers.

Finally, supreme charity is practiced in relation to God when, for His glory and in His service, it becomes necessary for the one exercising intransigence to put aside all human considerations, to trample underfoot all human respect, to sacrifice all human interests, and risk even life itself to attain such a high end.

(Felix Sardá y Salvany , El Liberalismo es pecado, Madrid: EPC, 1936, p. 85).

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When Silence and Complacence Are Sins

TIA | March 17, 2017

Often we have been censured for speaking out against Progressivism in the Church and in revolutionary customs. “You aren’t priests or theologians,” “You aren’t in charge of their formation,” are some comments of critics said to us as a pretext to keep us quiet.

Actually, their argument is futile. Every Catholic has the obligation to denounce error wherever and whenever it appears. St. Gertrude, who received countless revelations from Our Lord, tells us that we have the duty to correct the error, otherwise we sin.

St. Gertrude

Reading those words, “Where is Abel, your brother?” (Gen 4: 9), St. Gertrude understood that God will ask an account of each religious for the faults that his religious brothers committed against the Rule, because those faults could have been prevented had either the brother at fault or the Abbot been warned. The excuses of some – “I am not in charge of correcting my brother” or “I am worse than him” – will not receive a better welcome by God than those words of Cain, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gen 4: 9).

For, before the Lord each man is obliged to avert his brother from the bad path and exhort him to the good. In this regard, when someone is negligent in listening to the voice of his conscience, he always sins against God. He cannot give the excuse that he does not have the duty to correct his brother, because his conscience is his witness that God is calling him to do so. If he neglects this duty, he will have to give an account for it, and perhaps he more than the superior, who may have been absent or did not notice the fault.

From this comes that threat: “Woe to him who does evil. Woe to him twice who is complacent with it[/i]” – Vae faciendi, vae, vae consentienti. It is evident that the one who remains silent about a fault is complacent with it, since a few words from him would suffice to prevent an offense to the glory of God.

(St. Gertrude, Book III, chap. 30, in [i]Révélations de Saint Gertrude, Vièrge de l’Ordre de Saint Benoit, Paris: Alfred Mame, 1921, p. 218).

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God Chastises the Good When They Do Not Fight against Evil

TIA | December 9, 2006


The following is an excerpt from the speech St. Bernard addressed to the Catholic knights assembled in Vezelay in Burgundy, France, regarding the Second Crusade convoked by Pope Eugenius III on December 1, 1145.

St. Bernard

You know that we are living in a time of chastisement and destruction.... The laws of the land and the laws of Religion no longer have the strength to maintain the customs and stop the triumph of the evil ones. The devil of heresy is seated on the throne of truth. God has cursed His sanctuary.

All you who hear me, make haste to calm the wrath of Heaven! Leave off imploring His goodness with futile lamentations or mortifying yourself with disciplines, but rather take up your invincible shields. The clamor of arms, the dangers, difficulties and fatigues of war, these are the penances that God imposes on you. Go to make reparation for your faults with victories against the infidels, and let the liberation of the Holy Places be the noble reward of your repentance.

If someone were to come and announce that the enemy had just entered your cities, stolen away your wives and children, and desecrated your churches, who would not immediately rush to take up arms? Well, all these evils and others still worse have fallen on the family of Jesus Christ, which is also yours. It was dispersed by the sword of pagans; barbarians destroyed the house of God and divided His inheritance. What else must take place for you to repair so many evils and avenge so many outrages?

Will you let the infidels contemplate in peace the destruction and looting they have done in the house of the Christian people? Think of how their triumph will be the cause of inconsolable sorrow for all centuries and an eternal shame for the generation that permitted it.

Yes, the living God has charged me with telling you that He will chastise all those who do not defend Him against His enemies. All of you, then, to arms! Let a holy ire animate you to combat, and let these words of the Prophet resound throughout the world: Cursed be he who does not bloody his sword!

If God calls you to defend Him, it is not because His hand has become any less powerful: ... Rather, God looks down at the children of man and wants to offer them the path of mercy; His goodness is giving you the day of forgiveness. He chose you as the instrument of His revenge. He wants to be indebted to you for the destruction of His enemies and the triumph of His justice. Yes, the Omnipotent God calls you to make reparation for your sins by defending His glory and His name.

Christians warriors, these are combats worthy of you, combats that will attract the blessings of earth and Heaven, in which death itself will be for you but another triumph. Illustrious knights, remember the examples of your ancestors who conquered Jerusalem and whose names were inscribed in the Book of Life. Put on the Cross ... which will earn you the conquest of the celestial kingdom.

(História da Cruzadas, Joseph-Francois Michaud,
Editora das Américas, vol, 2, book 6, p. 234)