By the rivers of Babylon there we sat and wept, remembering Zion;
on the poplars that grew there we hung up our harps. . . Ps 136

‘CONSCIENCE DOTH MAKE COWARDS OF US ALL’

     Shakespeare’s line put in the mouth of Hamlet is uttered ironically for it is said of the fear of the intending suicide of the consequences of his act but, as Aristotle noted in his Ethics, it is not courage that drives the suicide but fear.[1]

The line is memorable, however, for its resonance with Dr Johnson’s condemnation of the false patriotism of William Pitt (the Elder) and his supporters as “the last refuge of the scoundrel”.  Thus did the Catholic renegades whose rejection of God’s authority led to ‘the Reformation’ seek to justify their rebellion by recourse to ‘conscience’, as if conscience was a supreme rule.[2]  ‘Conscience’ was the principle to which Henry Tudor appealed to justify abandonment of his marriage vows to his Queen, Catherine of Aragon, in 1533.

Conscience presupposes a sound grasp, and diligent conformity, to the universal principles of the moral law.  It is quite incapable of serving as a ground of justifiable action in the absence of that conformity.  It is not, as modern thought promoted by the Enlightenment teaches, a power or faculty in itself.  It is a judgement of the practical reason in which the mind applies moral principle to each situation.

The principals of both major parties – Labor and Liberal – in the New South Wales Parliament have advised that their members will not be subject to party discipline but will be permitted ‘a conscience vote’ on the Abortion Law Reform Amendment Bill to be debated this week.  The Bill seeks to compel Catholic hospitals and their employees to cooperate in the provision of induced abortion services in the State.

Since the proposed ‘law’ if passed will serve to compound existing breaches of the moral law which are destroying the common good, it will, consistent with natural principle, not be a law at all but a species of violence which will add to the individual and social harm ravaging the men, women and children of this State.[3]

People are wont to refer to parliament as a cowards’ castle.  Time will tell whether the NSW Parliament lives up to that epithet.

Michael Baker

March 19^th, 2025—Solemnity of St Joseph

OUR LADY OF LOURDES

A short paper highlighting the doctrinal issue that confirmed the revelations made to the peasant girl, Bernadette Soubirous, by Our Blessed Lady in 1858.  more

THE TWO CHURCHES - an Ebook This is a collection of papers on this website addressing the validity of the Second Vatican Council, the propriety of the actions of John XXIII and Paul VI in promoting it, of John Paul II and Benedict XVI in supporting it and the unintended consequence of their efforts, the creation of a Counterfeit at war with the Church established by Our Lord Jesus Christ.  It closes with an analysis of the validity of Benedict's resignation and of Jorge Mario Bergoglio's election as his successor. more

LIFE UNDER THE BANE OF SUBJECTIVISM

This is a conflation in one paper of three separate papers originally produced in 2010, revised in 2019 and again in 2024. more

THE CHURCH OF PAUL VI AND OF JOHN PAUL II

What Pope Paul VI intended by the title 'Mother of the Church' imposed on Our Blessed Lady is other than what you think.  more

ARCHBISHOP VIGANÒ’S EXCOMMUNICATION

This is a study of the events leading to the purported excommunication of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò on July 5th, 2024.  Along with the immense power of intellect Almighty God gave us the facility of distinction.  He expects us to exercise it.  We do that by not jumping to conclusions, not assuming that because Archbishop Viganò is excommunicated, or allegedly excommunicated, everything he says may be ignored.  At the heart of the business is the radical division among the Catholic faithful brought about by the immense imposture of the Second Vatican Council.  more

FURTHER THOUGHTS ON THE HEAVENLY BODY, ARISTOTLE'S AETHER, ST THOMAS'S 'FIRST ALTERING BODY'

It is now some six months since publication of How The Universe Operates by Austin Macauley Publishers.  A few further considerations on its thesis have occurred to the author.  more

THE DUPLICITY OF CREATION SCIENCE

Creation science has infiltrated the Catholic faithful via Protestant converts who have not thrown off all the characteristics of the heresy they have allegedly abandoned.  It is grounded in intellectual confusion and in lies.  more

Review of How the Universe Operates
by Dr Chris Decaen

This is a remarkable little book arguing for a new way to look at the causes involved in the natural world.  I say “new“ but in fact, it is also old, as it draws on the wisdom in the perennial philosophy of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas.  However, it is not an archaic attempt at bringing back the geocentric universe and the four elements.  Rather, it combines the enduring principles of Thomistic philosophy with the insights and observations of contemporary science.  Specifically, it proposes that we return to the ancient idea of an interstellar and intermolecular quasi-substance, what used to be called “aether,” in order to make better sense of some ideas in modern science and to revive the relevance of instrumental, agent, causality something largely neglected by the attention to force as an abstract quantity.  Baker does a nice job, pressing this idea, and even takes it in directions not quite imagined by Aquinas or Aristotle.  I’m not convinced by everything he says, but the fundamentals seem deeply right.  The argument of the book should be taken seriously.
____________________________

Christopher A Decaen B.A., M.A. Philosophy, Ph. D., Tutor, Thomas Aquinas College, Santa Paula CA.

Review of How the Universe Operates
by Dr Don Boland

Michael Baker’s book ‘How the Universe Operates’ is not a long book.  But it is packed with interesting and even fascinating ideas about the nature of the physical universe and our knowledge of how it operates…

There is much… in the Natural Philosophy/Science that has come down to us from the ancient Greeks, which is still full of deep insights that unfortunately the modern mind decided ought to be thrown out...

The author… has a good grasp of how precious was what we discarded in the rush to have fresh water for our modern scientific endeavours.  It is good to have clean water... Pity about the fledgling baby.

What is most interesting about the book is how the author endeavours, and, in my opinion, succeeds to a significant degree, to put the “unclean” baby, which is how the Aristotelian philosophy of nature is still regarded, into fresh water… our view of modern science.

…

[W]ith my limited knowledge of modern physics (which is more a mathematical physics than what Aristotle regarded as physics) I would not venture as far as he does with such exotic notions as aether, light and gravity.  But these are concepts that even the most expert of modern scientists struggle with, let alone with having to accommodate quite sophisticated Aristotelian notions of them.

There is one part of the book, where the author discusses the ancient belief that the earth was the centre of the whole physical universe, and provides an insight that I have not found elsewhere.  That alone I consider makes the book worth buying if only to share that insight.

I believe that both the reader who has had a good education in modern science, even though unacquainted with ancient natural philosophy, and one who has some such acquaintance, will find much instruction and even enjoyment in reading this book.

_________________

Donald G Boland Ll. B., Ph. D., is a former lecturer at Sydney’s Aquinas Academy now retired.  He is the author of a number of books on the philosophy of Aristotle and St Thomas Aquinas including Thomas of the Creator.  He resides in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales.

IN DEFENCE OF POPE FRANCIS

Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.  Those who seek to condemn Pope Francis shouldn't rely on Vatican II.  This paper is an ironic defence of the Pope by a theologian who shall remain nameless against recent charges of heresy grounded, inter alia, on the documents of Vatican II.  more

LAUNCH OF BOOK 'HOW THE UNIVERSE OPERATES' How the Universe Operates was launched by UK publishers Austin Macauley on December 8th 2023.  A link to the publisher’s website is  here. The book is featured on Amazon here.  It may be purchased either in Kindle or paperback editions at good booksellers or via amazon.com or amazon.com.au

PRINCIPLES & DISTINCTIONS -  FR GREGORY HESSE

This is an extract from one of the many audiotapes of the late Fr Gregory Hesse S.T.D., S.J.D.  more

TWENTY YEAR REPORT

Today marks the 120th anniversary of the death of Pope Leo XIII and the twentieth anniversary of this website.  It is appropriate for us to provide a report on those years of operation. Regrettably things have not got better but worse not only for the Catholic faithful but for society generally.  Despite the chaos that marks the current governance of God's Holy Church as a result of the abdication of Catholic in favour of Modernist principle on the part of Pope and bishops, the Holy Spirit is still running the show.  We take the opportunity to renew our faith in Him and His providence confident that His permission of the evils will result in the much greater good that He will elicit from them when the time is appropriate.  more

THE DARKNESS OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT

The thinkers who followed, some 50 to 100 years after the event, the revolt of German and English Catholics against God and His Holy Church, sought to defend its inchoate atheism.  Today we are suffering the appalling effects of the irrationality in which they engaged.  That those effects are worse than they might have been we owe to the systematic abrogation of their responsibilities by the bishops of the Catholic Church.  more

THE CONDEMNATION OF GALILEO

We publish here a further extract from historian Henry Sire’s Phoenix from the Ashes (Kettering OH, Angelico Press, 2015, pp. 93-100) to aid the Catholic faithful in their defence of the faith against the Protestant and atheistic impositions.

Galileo was a man whom, in today’s argot, we would describe as possessed of attitude, i.e., truculence or pig-headedness.    He was a good scientist but had a higher opinion of himself and his views than reality allowed.   He was also dishonest.  Had it not been discovered, long after the events that saw him marginalised by the Catholic Church, that his opinion was close to the truth uncovered by Sir Isaac Newton 55 years later, and that his condemnation could conveniently be used as a stick with which to beat the Church, his intemperateness might have attracted the obloquy it deserved.   Sire identifies the issues in this way:  “A clash between impudent folly and pompous autocracy has… been misrepresented as a conflict between science and religion”.   more

Dr Chris Decaen of Thomas Aquinas College has a splendid article on the topic on the College's website here:

https://www.thomasaquinas.edu/news/dr-chris-decaen-lecture-galileo-church

Review of Phoenix from the Ashes

Phoenix from the Ashes - The Making, Unmaking, and Restoration of Catholic Tradition by H J A Sire [Kettering, Ohio, Angelico Press http://angelicopress.com/sire-phoenix-from-the-ashes , 2015] is as admirable as it is timely. Here is a review of this important book.  more

THE PROBLEM WITH VATICAN II This is a book length pdf file comprised of various papers published on superflumina on the vexed topic of the Second Vatican Council.  The reader can download it freely.  He can navigate via the Index to any of its chapters.  He can have his computer read the text aloud while he labours at some task in the house, or as he drives the car.  It is hoped to produce it in several additional ebook formats in due course.This is a revised and shortened version of the original publication.  more

THE POMPOUS ATHEIST This ebook addresses the endemic modern problem of atheism—belief in no-God.  Atheists assert that they are above superstition, the ‘superstition’ of religious belief, but it is not true.  Not only are they believers, they are believers without the slightest evidence of that in which they believe.  They are the real exponents of ‘religious liberty’ for they insist on the freedom to believe there is no God.  Their every action involves acceptance of causation.  But, obsessed with an idea, they choose to deny causations’s reality when it comes to their own essence and existence.  In this series of essays we have endeavoured to make it plain just how stupid is the atheistic thesis.   It is reasonable to believe in God, no matter how confused one’s belief may be.  The fundamental issues are these: 1. I did not bring myself into existence; 2.  I do not keep myself in existence; 3.  in this world of reality I am one of the privileged beings for not only do I know singular things, like brute animals, but I know their very natures;  4. nothing exists without an adequate cause—and that includes me!  Moreover, 5. the one who caused me must be living and intellectual, as I am living and intellectual—but an immensely greater being.   It is hoped that the presentation of these essays will assist the reader in resisting the temptation to embrace the atheistic virus.  more

PROFESSOR SOLOMON'S LESSONS IN PHILOSOPHY

See the complete set of lessons here