Category Archives: Mein Kampf

Book Review: George William Rutler, Hints of Heaven: The Parables of Christ and What They Mean for You (Sophia Institute Press, 2014)

Posted on by
Reply

Above from left to right: Saint Demetrios, a senior officer in the Roman Army; Saint George, Commander of the Guard of Roman Emperor Diocletian; Saint Procopius, a commander in the Roman Army; and, Saint Artemius, a senior commander in the Roman Army. All were martyred for proclaiming and defending their Christian faith. Along with their faith and devotion to God, the Parables of Christ were a likely source of comfort for them as they endured persecution and torture. In many countries today, the Parables comfort military personnel, diplomats, policy analysts, and political leaders coping with turbulent situations.

In writings and public discussions about foreign and defense policy, often absent is consideration of what is an essential part of the lives of many military personnel, diplomats, policy analysts, and political leaders. That element is their faith, devotion to God. It may not be easily discerned, for they usually will not wear their faith on their sleeves. It was a factor most apparent in the thinking of Christianity’s warrior saints; Roman soldiers dedicated to their duties but dedicated more to God’s truth and defending Christianity. Among the first recognized were: Saint Demetrios of Thessaloniki, a high ranking officer in the Roman Army, who considered himself a soldier of Christ first and a soldier second. He was martyred in 306 A.D. by Emperor Maximian; Saint George of Lydda, who was a military officer, a Tribune, in the Guard of Emperor Diocletian. He denounced the persecution of Christians, defended Christianity was martyred by Diocletian for testimony to his faith in 303 A.D; Saint Procopius of Jerusalem, a commander in the Roman Army who turned away from the military and declared himself a soldier of Christ after defending the Christians of Alexandria and Jerusalem. He was martyred by Emperor Diocletian in 303 A.D.; and, Saint Artemius of Antioch, a general of the Roman Empire and Imperial Prefect of Roman Egypt. He was accused of persecuting pagans and demolishing pagan temples and idols in Alexandria, and was recalled and martyred by Emperor Julian the Apostate in 362 A.D.

In Hints of Heaven: The Parables of Christ and What They Mean for You (Sophia Institute Press, 2014), Father George William Rutler offers readers a chance to understand Christ’s teachings from the Gospels using His favorite vehicle, the parable. It was the profound spiritual advice of these teachings that provided those martyrs and multitudes, a guide for living, bringing them closer to God. The Parables comforted those Christians, helping them understand that despite persecution, the difficulties and trials of life, a road to heaven exists. That encouragement, along with the power of their faith and devotion to God, helped them summon the courage to triumph over the inhumanities put before them. To better understand how in many countries today the Parables comfort military personnel, diplomats, policy analysts, and political leaders coping with turbulent situations, and to acquire for oneself a different way to look at those situations, Hints of Heaven is the perfect book to read.

Reared in the Episcopal tradition in New Jersey and New York, Rutler was an Episcopal priest for nine years, and the youngest Episcopal rector in the country when he headed the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont, Pennsylvania. However, in 1979, he was received into the Catholic Church and was sent to the North American College in Rome for seminary studies. A graduate of Dartmouth, Rutler also took advanced degrees at the Johns Hopkins University and the General Theological Seminary. He holds several degrees from the Gregorian and Angelicum Universities in Rome, including the Pontifical Doctorate in Sacred Theology, and studied at the Institut Catholique in Paris. In England, in 1988, the University of Oxford awarded him the degree Master of Studies. From 1987 to 1988 he was a regular preacher to the students, faculty, and townspeople of Oxford. Thomas More College and Christendom College awarded him honorary doctorates. For ten years he was also National Chaplain of Legatus, the organization of Catholic business leaders and their families, engaged in spiritual formation and evangelization. A board member of several schools and colleges, he is Chaplain of the New York Guild of Catholic Lawyers, Regional Spiritual Director of the Legion of Mary (New York and northern New Jersey) and has long been associated with the Missionaries of Charity, and other religious orders. He was a university chaplain for the Archdiocese. Rutler has lectured and given retreats in many nations, frequently in Ireland and Australia. Since 1988, EWTN has broadcasted Rutler’s television programs worldwide. Rutler has made documentary films in the US and the United Kingdom, contributes to numerous scholarly and popular journals and has published 18 books, referred to by some as classics, on theology, history, cultural issues, and the lives of the saints.

Rutler’s Hints of Heaven assembles the traditional count of twenty-four Parables of Jesus Christ found in the Gospels of the New Testament written by three of Christ’s Apostles: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The Gospel written by the Apostle John presents metaphors, but no parables. Rutler defines a parable as a similitude, employing a brief narrative in order to reach a spiritual lesson. He wants readers to understand how special the Parables are. He notes they are unlike other Eastern parables, and certainly unlike what he calls “the lesser stuff” found in current “spiritual best sellers” as they are not exotic. They do not distort or exaggerate nature in the way fables do. He says: “Kings are kings, but not wizards, and rich men are rich, but not omnipotent.” Rutler emphasizes, however, that the Parables are what Christ said they are: hints of heaven. He says that because the glory of heaven is too great for us to bear just now, Christ uses parables as delicate, veiled indicators of “our true homeland.” Hints of Heaven is masterfully written. Rutler again displays his remarkable command of the English language.

In reviewing Rutler’s Hints of Heaven, greatcharlie.com recognized that to convey a sense of religiousness makes oneself spooky to some. Writing publicly, one of course opens oneself up to constructive criticism at best and obloquy at worst. Still, a discussion tied to faith might be feared by readers on its face as being one more expression of neurotic religiosity. The majority of greatcharlie.com’s readers are primarily interested in foreign and defense policy and that presents an extra challenge in discussing the Parables. In Hints of Heaven, Rutler presents the Parables in a way that value can be found in them, certainly as spiritual guidance, but also in a way that facilitates their use in examing current international affairs. That hopefully will create interest in Hints of Heaven among those who might not consider the book ordinarily or come across the Parables at all. Vocatus atque non vocatus Deus aderit. (Called or not called, God will be present.)

Ralph Waldo Emerson has been quoted as saying: “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” For the spiritual, conscience is formed by God’s truth. God’s truth creates order. In addition to knowing God’s truth, one must embody His truth which is inspired by love. The truth is a great treasure, a beautiful and satisfactory explanation of the world and heaven that should speak to the individual. One should love God, love one’s neighbor, and remain virtuous by choice because it is the right thing to do. The worship of God raises one up to Him. Having faith should never mean simply succumbing to a series of obligations. Nothing seems more illogical at first to the minds of many who would consider themselves enlightened than God’s truth. They are unable to understand anything beyond familiar physical formulas. For many, God’s presence is obscured by tragic events and popular personalities boastful of their own appearance, abilities or worth who encourage the same behavior of others. Indeed, popular culture can interdict true worship by fashion and by pseudo-sophistication. Feeling empty, some individuals turn to a substitute, feel good religiosity that is easy, comfortable, and assuring. Illusions that approximate the truth, even fantasies, find acceptance. The German-American actress, singer, and agnostic, Marlene Dietrich, said during a London tour, “You can’t live without illusions, even if you must fight for them . . . .” Taking the wrong path in search of a way to worship has been said to create a neurosis, as one is deprived of what one is meant to do and to be. Causa latet, vis est notissima. (The cause is hidden, but the force is very well known.)

In the Catholic Church, leaders have indicated that far more is involved in the behavior just described than choosing to accept or reject God’s truth. Individuals are being influenced, inspired by evil.   Many among those who might consider themselves enlightened are disinclined to accept the existence of evil. Still, it exists. Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina explained “The evil spirits, because of their pride, anger, and envy, will attempt to turn your gaze away from God through their temptations or harassments, so that every thought and action you engage in might be in opposition to what the Lord desires for you.” Even if one accepts that evil exists, one needs to beware of its subtlety. Saint John Paul II explained: “Spiritual combat . . . is a secret and interior art, an invisible struggle in which [we] engage everyday against the temptations, the evil suggestions that the demon tries to plant in [our] hearts.”

Five months before the fall of Mosul in 2014, US President Barack Obama had dismissed ISIS in an interview with The New Yorker’s David Remnick as the ‘jay-vee’ squad of terrorists.” It is important that countries intervening against evil be certain of their motivations and intentions. Having the will to act is not enough. Accepting that good and evil, angels and demons, exist is also not enough. Evil can quiet all suspicions, making everything appear normal and natural to those with the best intentions.

Few national governments and other power centers today likely factor in evil when analyzing international events and formulating and implementing their foreign and defense policies. US President Franklin Roosevelt accepted spiritual combat between good and evil, angels and demons as a reality. He believed that World War II, which albeit began for mixed reasons, could only be understood in its essential dynamic as spiritual combat between forces of great good and palpable evil. He viewed German Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler as a demonic force propelling the conflict. His plans were spelled out in Mein Kampf. Roosevelt found a like-minded partner in United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill. In Roosevelt’s mind, Allied forces would not fight as armies of conquest but as a force to defeat evil. Roosevelt’s belief that the war represented a battle against the forces of evil was well-expressed in his National Address and Prayer during the Invasion of Normandy, France by the Allies on June 6, 1944. Roosevelt prayed: “With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace—a peace invulnerable to the scheming of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.” Churchill many times before then had signaled his belief in the demonic nature of Hitler and his evil works. In his renowned “Their Finest Hour” speech of June 18, 1940, Churchill included the following: “Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.”

US President Franklin Roosevelt accepted spiritual combat between good and evil as a reality. He believed that World War II, which albeit began for mixed reasons, could only be understood in its essential dynamic as spiritual combat between forces of great good and palpable evil. He viewed German Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler as a demonic force propelling the conflict. Roosevelt found a like-minded partner in United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Roosevelt saw Allied armies as a force to defeat evil.

As Roosevelt understood, and it remains so today, the use of lethal force by countries, to fight wars, to halt evil actions or the infliction of evil upon people is not contrary to God’s truth. However, it is important that countries intervening against evil be certain of their motivations and intentions. Having the will to act is not enough. Accepting that good and evil, angels and demons, exist is also not enough. Evil can quiet all suspicions, making everything appear normal and natural to those with the best intentions. One must look deeper to discern flaws, to see what is lacking.

Following each Parable presented in Hints of Heaven, Rutler provides a short discussion. He explains their meaning and often explains how their lessons have surfaced in history. Readers can contemplate how the lessons of the Parables allow for their own assays of events in today’s world; the machinations and conduct of leaders and officials. Consider these assays of current events using Rutler’s presentation of the following Parables in Hints of Heaven: “The Wicked Husbandmen”; “The Unmerciful Servant”; and, “The Rich Fool”.

In the Parable of “The Wicked Husbandmen,” tenant farmers acted on the fantasy of taking possession of a vineyard, engaging in evil acts hold it from the owner. They were executed. European countries have kept their doors open to migrants seeking better lives. Yet, the migrant wave from the Middle East, North Africa, and Central and Southwest Asia have put that practice in question. Islamic terrorist attacks have heightened European concerns over migrants. Europe’s response has included measured steps on immigration. Future attacks may result in grave steps to ensure public safety.

The Wicked Husbandmen

“Hear another parable. ‘There was a house holder who planned a vineyard, and set a hedge around it, and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and let it out to tenants, and went into another country. When the season of fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants, to get his fruit; and the servants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first; and they did the same to them. Afterward he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ And they took him and cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him. When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’ They said to him, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.’ Jesus said to them, Have you never read in the scriptures: ‘The very stone which the builders rejected, has become the head of the corner; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? ‘Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it. And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but when it falls on any one, it will crush him.’ ”

Concerning this Parable, Rutler explains that as tenant farmers, the husbandmen gradually assumed proprietary airs over the vineyard. They acted on the fantasy becoming its owners. In the end, they were executed. For years, countries in Western Europe have kept their doors open to people seeking better lives for themselves and their families. Procedures exist for governments to handle all types of migrants, including asylum seekers, war refugees, and guest workers. Recognizing the plight of those people, European governments have been resolute about maintaining their countries immigration programs despite the mounting pressures of illegal immigration and the social and political backlash from some citizens. The recent wave of migrants from the Middle East, North Africa, and Southwest Asia, seeking to capitalize on Europe’s open doors, has created a crisis. Solutions have been sought including diplomacy with Turkey to help stem the tide of migrants. Recent terrorist attacks in Europe by the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) have heightened public concerns. Having compassion toward migrants, it has been discouraging for the European public to discover that there are some, who, rather than expressing gratitude to the people of their adoptive countries, instead speak with invective about their new homes, new compatriots. Europeans must sadly accept that terrorists desperate to strike violently in their cities have infiltrated their countries by hiding among migrants. Those open to engaging in terrorist activities are a negligible fraction of Europe’s immigrant communities. Even so, such makes political leaders appear naïve and inept, and action has been demanded of them. European political leaders have acted with measured steps. Most European countries have joined the US-led, anti-ISIS coalition which is launching airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and training and equipping local forces in those countries contending with ISIS. Information sharing on terrorist groups among European intelligence and law enforcement entities has also increased. If more attacks such as those seen in Brussels, Paris, London, or Madrid should happen in Europe, a harder look will be given to immigration, not to harm migrants, but as a matter of public safety, to protect innocent citizens. Responses could include the suspension of Europe’s immigration programs, the termination of visas and citizenship for some, and possible deportations. Salus populi suprema lex. (The safety of the people is the supreme law.)

In the Parable of “The Wicked Servant,” a servant, whose lord forgave him of his indebtedness, refused to act similarly toward another servant indebted to him. The situation in Syria continues to shift in Syrian Arab Republic President Bashar al-Assad’s favor with the help of Russia and Iran. A deal allowing Assad to remain in power for some period in Damascus, once improbable, could become reality. That decision could be rationalized by the realization that Syria’s reconstruction must get underway. Still, if vengeance would likely color Assad’s reign after a deal is reached, it might be better not to enter into any agreement with him at all.

The Unmerciful Servant

“Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began the reckoning, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents; and as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him the lord of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But that same servant, as he went on, came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him by the throat he said, ‘Pay what you owe me.’ So his fellow servant fell down and besought him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ He refused and went and put him in prison till he should pay the debt. When he fellow servants saw what he had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgive you all that debt because you besought me; and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you!’ And in anger his lord delivered him to the jailers, till he should pay his debt. So should my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

Regarding this Parable, Rutler says: “Forgiveness is not an easy platitude offered to the smug; nor is it an aggressive display of pacifism.” He goes on to state: “There is no reason to forgive anyone unless it is done with enough humility to inspire humility in the one who is forgiven.” Despite how impolitic it may sound, the easiest way to handle Syrian Arab Republic President Bashar al-Assad’s removal would be to eliminate him “covertly” as has been the case with key leaders of Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Khorasan, Abu-Sayyaf, Abu-Shabab, Hezbollah, and Hamas; the list goes on. Certainly, Assad is not immortal. However, as the elected leader of a sovereign state, Assad has been given an intriguing degree of recognition and respect. Military action against his regime by the US and European powers has been predominantly on the margins. The purpose of training and equipping of Syrian Opposition rebels forces and Kurdish forces in Syria was to push Assad to the negotiating table where it was hoped he would have agreed to step down. Until September 2015, that was beginning to look possible due to additional pressures Assad’s forces were feeling from Islamic militant groups such as ISIS and Jabhat Al-Nusra. However, in September 2015, the Russian Federation and Iran stepped up their assistance to Assad to include group troops and massive air support. The situation on the battlefield has been reversed seemingly obviating the need for Assad to concede anything at negotiations set up under UN Security Council Resolution 2254. Success on the battlefield may also help to shape the political situation in Syria enough to impact national elections envisaged under that resolution. If the situation continues to shift in Assad’s favor with the help of Russia and Iran, and an agreement allowing Assad to remain in power for at least some period in Damascus, once deemed improbable in the West, might become a possibility. That decision could be rationalized by the realization that Syria’s reconstruction must get underway. However, Assad’s predilection for violence against civilians landed him on a list of war crimes suspects that was handed to the International Criminal Court in 2014. If retribution and sheer vengeance colors Assad’s reign after peace is established, it might be better not to enter any agreement with him at all. Rather than influencing Assad from the battlefield, perhaps leaving him to rebuild Syria using his own devices and the wherewithal of his benefactors in Russia, Iran, and China, might do more to force him into new negotiations and concessions. In exchange for Western assistance, Assad could be required to take verifiable steps to alter his country’s political system. He may be forced to extinguish his appetite for violence against his people and depart earlier. Avarus animus nullo satiatur lucro. (A greedy mind is satisfied with no amount of gain.)

In the Parable of “The Rich Fool”, a wealthy man saw fit to build larger barns in which to store a bumper crop of grain never thinking to share with the needy. Immigration policies and programs of prosperous, industrialized Western countries demonstrate their goodwill and willingness to share in their success with the world. They have benefitted multitudes. Still, many citizens of those countries are angered that they have not shared in their countries’ success. Often, they are under paid, underemployed, worried about keeping their jobs, or languishing in hated jobs. They want political leaders to respond to them.

The Rich Fool

“The land of a rich man brought forth plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops. And he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns, and build larger ones; and there I will store all of my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ ‘So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God’.”

About this Parable, Rutler explains that the rich fool denies himself the happiness that comes from giving happiness to God, even though God does not need more happiness. Saint Augustine’s counsel helps one understand that the rich fool’s barns should have been “the bosoms of the needy, the houses of widows, the mouths of orphans and widows.”   In prosperous, industrialized Western countries, steady progress has allowed their citizens the chance to enjoy a standard of living most in other countries lack and desire. Immigration policies and programs of those Western countries demonstrate their goodwill and willingness to share in their success with the world. In recent years, multitudes have benefitted from those policies and programs. The high influx of legal immigrants has caused governments to continually consider ways to absorb them without straining services and infrastructure. Illegal immigrants have also strained those countries’ structures creating a debate among political leaders, domestic policy analysts, and law enforcement on how to act. Yet, an unsettling concern is the increased grumbling among citizens, the tax-payers of prosperous countries who, by any measure, have not enjoyed in their countries’ success. In the US, they have been dubbed “the disaffected.” Often, they are under paid, underemployed, worried about keeping their jobs, are a salary away from disaster, and languish in jobs they hate. Some feel that despite family ties, service and sacrifice in wars, and years of allegiance to their countries, they are being bypassed by newcomers. They want political leaders to respond to their needs, before responding to those of others abroad. A robust effort by US political leaders to resolve problems forestalling many citizens from sharing in their country’s success would well-exhibit the country’s goodwill toward its own people. On April 25, 2016, US President Barack Obama spoke on this issue in Hannover, Germany, saying: “Countries should not have to choose between responding to crises and investing in their people. So we need to pursue reforms to position us for long-term prosperity, and support demand and invest in the future. All of our countries, for example, could be investing more in infrastructure. All of our countries need invest in science and research and development that sparks new innovation and new industries. All of our countries have to invest in our young people, and make sure that they have the skills and the training and the education they need to adapt to this rapidly changing world.” Responding to the “disaffected” has also been a theme of candidates in the 2016 US Presidential Campaign. Candidates claim to have answers. Perhaps the one elected will respond to their needs. Divitiae effundendo magis quam coacervando, melius nitent: siquidem avaritia semper odiosos, claros largitas facit. (Wealth shines in spending, not amassing: to be close-fisted is hateful, to be open-handed splendid.)

A Very Satisfying, Very Valuable Read!

As mentioned initially, for greatcharlie.com’s readers, Hints of Heaven would not be a customary book selection as it does not directly concern foreign and defense policy. Still, reading Hints of Heaven will allow those primarily interested in international affairs to take a look at many urgent and important issues from a different and intriguing lens. This book is guaranteed to be an enjoyable respite, a very satisfying, very valued, read. There is nothing disappointing about it. Without reservations, greatcharlie.com recommends Hints of Heaven to its readers.

By Mark Edmond Clark

Book Review: George William Rutler, Principalities and Powers: Spiritual Combat 1942-1943 (St. Augustine’s Press, 2013)

Posted on by
Reply

Above is what remains of the tomb of the prophet Jonah of the Old Testament and tthe mosque that held it, in Mosul, Iraq. The Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) destroyed it. Western governments are greatly interested in what is driving ISIS’ campaign of religious and ethnic bigotry, murder, and destruction in territory that it controls in Syria and Iraq. In Principalities and Powers, George William Rutler discusses the role evil played in World War II. His book may help Western leaders better understand ISIS and how to proceed against it.

The world’s response to Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) initially was reminiscent of the late 1930s when war came to Europe, and so many turned a blind eye as countries were conquered and countless innocent civilians killed in aerial bombardments, artillery fire, tank guns, and small arms. Lamentations heard from numerous innocent civilians, including children, in Iraq, Syria, and Libya by beheading, crucifixion, and forced exile from their ancient homelands are chillingly enough to remind not only of the fighting in World War II, but also of the cries heard from ghettos and concentration camps resulting from the vile anti-Semitism and crimes of German Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist Party (Nazis). Anti-ISIS governments must acknowledge today what governments fighting the Nazis recognized. The fight against ISIS is a fight against evil.

In Principalities and Powers: Spiritual Combat 1942-1943 (St. Augustine’s Press, 2013), George William Rutler illustrates that World War II, which began for mixed reasons and was fought on many fronts, can only be understood in its essential dynamic as spiritual combat between forces of great good and palpable evil.  Rutler explains that from his book, readers should gain an understanding of how “the same moral dilemmas of an old war, in their display of human dignity and the anatomy of cruelty, are background for the same realities in our own day.” Given the evil that ISIS poses, Principalities and Powers is an exceedingly relevant book to read right now.

Reared in the Episcopal tradition in New Jersey and New York, Rutler was an Episcopal priest for nine years, and the youngest Episcopal rector in the country when he headed the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont, Pennsylvania. However, in 1979, he was received into the Catholic Church and was sent to the North American College in Rome for seminary studies. A graduate of Dartmouth, Rutler also took advanced degrees at the Johns Hopkins University and the General Theological Seminary. He holds several degrees from the Gregorian and Angelicum Universities in Rome, including the Pontifical Doctorate in Sacred Theology, and studied at the Institut Catholique in Paris. In England, in 1988, the University of Oxford awarded him the degree Master of Studies. From 1987 to 1988 he was regular preacher to the students, faculty, and townspeople of Oxford. Thomas More College and Christendom College awarded him honorary doctorates. For ten years he was also National Chaplain of Legatus, the organization of Catholic business leaders and their families, engaged in spiritual formation and evangelization. A board member of several schools and colleges, he is Chaplain of the New York Guild of Catholic Lawyers, Regional Spiritual Director of the Legion of Mary (New York and northern New Jersey) and has long been associated with the Missionaries of Charity, and other religious orders. He was a university chaplain for the Archdiocese. Rutler has lectured and given retreats in many nations, frequently in Ireland and Australia. Since 1988, EWTN has broadcasted Rutler’s television programs worldwide. Rutler has made documentary films in the US and England, contributes to numerous scholarly and popular journals and has published 16 books, referred to by some as classics, on theology, history, cultural issues, and the lives of the saints.

Principalities and Powers is a history of the pivotal years of World War II: 1942–1943. In its discussion, Rutler, as expected, devotes attention to well-reported events of the period. Yet, the discussion of those events is used primarily to couch a recounting of the efforts made by a diverse set of individuals to confront the enemies of humanity. Admittedly, there is a predominant focus on the resistance of priests and officials of the Catholic Church to evil, including the papacy’s direct activities against atheistic totalitarian governments. However, that history helps to fill the book with loads of drama and intrigue. Many of the individuals mentioned are forgotten today and little was known of some even then. (The book’s “Index of Names” has 277 entries.) Several of them did not survive the war. Rutler explains that events of this period demonstrate human nature never changes. Heroes and cowards, and saints and sinners are revealed. To write Principalities and Powers, Rutler drew from a collection of actual letters, newspapers, and journals of the period. He skillfully used those resources to provide a profound discussion of events. (The information might well have been lost as most of these documents were printed on rationed paper and are deteriorating.) Previously, greatcharlie reviewed and highly recommended Rutler’s book, Cloud of Witnesses: Dead People I Knew When They Were Alive (Scepter, 2010). Rutler has amazed greatcharlie again with Principalities and Powers.

At the start of World War II, no one could be certain about its outcome. The situation was touch and go. Rutler notes that defenders of humanity had the good fortune of having the right leaders in place at the right time. Winston Churchill was not well-liked within circles of power. He was a harsh critic of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler. At the outbreak of the war, King George VI appealed to Lord Edward Halifax, the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom and Viceroy of India before that, to take on the post of Prime Minister. However, after France fell, the invasion of the United Kingdom was viewed as certain. Art from the National Gallery was removed. The Royals’ bags were packed. Halifax would decline the prime minister’s post, perhaps concerned as many other leaders over how the Nazis would respond to them if the United Kingdom fell. Churchill, serving as First Lord of the Admiralty, was available, was willing, and was begrudgingly selected. US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was another fortuitous placement. Roosevelt, known as a deal maker, aligned completely with the United Kingdom. Rutler explains that Roosevelt, as Churchill, viewed Hitler as truly evil. Hitler spelled his plans out in Mein Kampf and executed them. Despite the US public’s overwhelming support for neutrality and the Neutrality Act of 1939, the Lend-Lease Act was passed in the US Congress in March 1941. The US received leases for a chain of British islands guarding the Caribbean for the loan of US ships and other material support, committing the US to the United Kingdom’s defense. The Atlantic Charter of August 1941 affirming the solidarity between the two countries. Churchill was certainly uneasy with Roosevelt’s deals with the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin, who he viewed as no-less evil than Hitler. He never reconciled with the division of postwar Europe and remained concerned over Soviet plans for global Communist domination.

From right to left are Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin, on the portico of the Russian Embassy during the Tehran Conference in 1943. Roosevelt and Churchill jointly held the view that Hitler was evil and had to be approached as such. Churchill, however, was uneasy over deals eventually made with Stalin that established the postwar division of Europe.

Rutler notes that during its ascent, Nazism was essentially ignored by European governments for what it truly was, they paid a high price. The delusion of European leaders that Hitler could be managed, contained, or controlled, fostered an environment for the growth of Nazi power. From the very beginning, it was clear that the founding principles of Nazism were inimical to Western ideals. As Rutler explains, Nazism was more than a political movement, it was a religion, possessing its own ceremonies and rituals. The Nazis created their own pagan gods for their religion and used Norse pagan gods. Having created an artificial church, the Nazis sought to disband existing religions. Having prevented the people from believing in the true God, they submitted to a cult of personality. They worshipped Hitler. Hitler copied all of the trappings of fascism from Italian Duce and Prime Minister Benito Mussolini, but Hitler’s abilities as an orator put him in a special class. While the great orator among the defender’s of civilization, Winston Churchill, spoke to convince people that they could do anything. Hitler spoke to convince people that he could do anything. The Judgment of the Nations was a work published in 1942 by the Catholic historian Christopher Dawson, but it began to get significant attention only in the early months of 1943. “The old landmarks of good and evil and truth and falsehood have been swept away and civilization is driving before the storm of destruction like a dismasted and helmless ship.” Dawson saw proof in world events that “evil too is a progressive force and that the modern world provides unlimited prospects for its development.” He believed what accounted for this was that things spiritual had been invaded by the secular state. Through that arose the totalitarian state, which imposed “total control of all human activities and all human energies, spiritual as well as physical . . and their direction to whatever ends are dictated by its interests, or rather the interests of the ruling party or clique.” From 1942 and 1943, it was clear that evil was rising all around Europe, seemingly transmitted by the Nazis as they gained territory and authority over Europe’s peoples. An incredible number of atrocities were being committed by governments across the continent. Villains that may be more memorable include Vichy French Prime Minister Pierre Laval, whose cruelty amazed even many Nazis. He reportedly stated: “Cardinals and bishops have intervened, but everyone is a master of his own trade. They handle religion. I handle government.”  Rutler indicates that evil even managed to consume some officials of the Catholic Church. A priest, Monsignor Josef Tiso, as puppet president of the Slovak State, paid the Germans to deport 60,000 Slovak Jews for extermination in Auschwitz, making Slovakia the only country to subsidize such deportations.  Pro-Ustashe Archbishop Sarić of Sarevejo penned an ode to the leader of the Ustashe government of Croatia, Ante Pavelić. Croatia had the highest rate of genocide, in proportion to population, of any European country. After the war he fled to Spain, while Pavelić was hidden by Jesuits near Naples and eventually settled in Argentina. In Yugoslavia, Bishop Alojzije Mišić of Mostar expressed horror at the massacres of Serbs with the complicity of Herzegovinian Franciscans residing in Široki Brijeg near Medjugorje. Bishop Mišić described hundreds of women and children and elderly men thrown alive into ravines at Surmanci.

In Belgium, the University of Louvain was purged of its Catholic faculty and Mass was forbidden. In Poland, the Germans suppressed all patriotic hymns, litanies, and prayers and took particular umbrage at the practice of hailing the Virgin Mary as “Queen of the Crown of Poland.” Dr. Mutz, Chief of the Department of Internal Administration, abolished all mentions of the Polish State, “which no longer exists.” May 3rd would no longer be celebrated as the day of the Beatae Mariae Virginis Patronae Rei Publicae Poloniae. The August 15th “Actio gratiarum pro Victoria super Bolshevicos 1920″ was forbidden, along with the thanksgiving for the victory at Chocim on October 10th and all services on November 11th commemorating the rebirth of the Polish Republic. Outside of Europe, in Syria, the Nationalist Socialist Party hailed Hitler as “Abu Ali” and the Young Egypt Party called him “Muhammed Haidar.”  The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Mohammed Effendi Amin el-Husseini visited Hitler, secured the deportation of 5,000 Jewish children to death camps, and obtained a promise from Hitler to liquidate the Jews of Palestine after a Nazi victory.

On the far left is Ante Pavelic, leader of the Ustashe government of Croatia, making a Nazi salute in the presence of a prayerful Monsignor Alojzije (Aloysius) Stepinac on the far right. Under Nazi influence in World War II, Croatia had the highest rate of genocide, in proportion to population, in Europe.

The resistance to evil was strong. Included among the thousands of individuals who, as Rutler says, “attained virtue on a heroic scale,” is the pioneer of pan-Europeanism, the Austro-Hungarian Count Richard Nikolaus von Coudenhove-Kalergi. The character Victor Laszlo in the film Casablanca was based on him the Count. Although he was a professor at New York University in 1943, Hitler still loathed him as “everybody’s bastard.” He was, however, admired by Archduke Otto von Habsburg, Aristide Briand, Albert Einstein, Horace Mann, Sigmund Freud, and later by Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle; he was an anti-Nazi and foe of anti-Semitism (like his Catholic father, who annually walked out of Good Friday services at the mention of the “perfidious Jews”).  Rutler mentions the Foreign Minister of Generalismo Francisco Franco’s Spain, Count Francisco Gomez-Jordana, who helped make his country a haven for Eastern European Jews, especially Sephardic Jews from Hungary. German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, a well-known conspirator in the plot to assassinate Hitler, is mentioned. However, Rutler also discusses the lesser-known assassination attempt against Hitler by German Army Colonel Rudolf von Gersdorff, chief of intelligence for German Army General Gunther von Kluge. Further, Rutler mentions the attempted protests by students at universities in the Netherlands against the Nazi revision of their syllabus, and protests by students at the Sorbonne and Grand Paris Ecoles. Rutler includes their letter to Vichy French Chief of State Philippe Petain which stated: “For more than two years, forgetting their rowdy traditions, the students of the University of Paris have abstained from demonstrations. But our silence has never implied acceptance of events of which we were the distressed observers. Above all, the brutal deportation of thousands of French workers has provoked our indignation.”

For Rutler, the strong role of the clergy in the resistance to tyranny was natural given their sense that the barbarity unleashed by the war was in reality a manifestation of evil and the presence of the devil. Rutler points to leaders such as the bishop of Berlin, Johann Konrad Maria Augustin Felix Graf von Preysing Lichtenegg-Moos, who stated when the Nazis had first come into power, “We have fallen into the hands of criminals and fools.” Bishop von Preysing exhorted in his Advent message of December 12, 1942, “Every departure from right and justice will sooner or later be broken against these foundations of God’s Dominion.” He explained the world’s present miseries were the result of human contempt for natural and divine law: “Resistance to God’s sovereign rule was a product largely of the eighteenth century—the century which proclaimed the primacy of human intelligence, the individual as an autonomous being and as his own sole judge, and which declared that all right was to be derived from this intelligence independently of God’s law.” The state had imposed itself as the very incarnation of God, replacing justice and right with power and profit. The Bishop’s appeal was stark: “My dear Brethren: ‘Repent,’ and change your mode of thinking. This is my appeal to you.” The pro-Nazi newspaper Vooruit of Ghent rued the pastoral letter of Jozef-Ernest Cardinal van Roey, who opposed forced labor. At the same time, the primate of Hungary, Jusztinian Cardinal Seredi, told representatives of the Hungarian Catholic press that “all States have equal sovereignty” and so “the Hungarian nation has a birthright to claim—freedom, autonomy, and national independence.” Reverend R. H. W. Regout, professor of international law at the Catholic University of Nijmegen, died at the age of 46 in Dachau, where he and three other professors had been sent shortly after the occupation of the Netherlands. The “priest block” in that concentration camp held 2,579 priests over the war years, 1,785 of them Polish, more than a thousand of whom perished there. By February1943, 34 Italian chaplains had been killed in active service.

On April 19, 1943, the Swedish Svenska Dagbladet printed a letter from the archbishop of Zagreb, Monsignor Alojzije (Aloysius) Stepinac, to the Italian ambassador to the Croatian puppet state. The Italians had been exploiting conflicts between Croats and Serbs to make them seem ideological rather than ethnic: “I must protest energetically against the incredible atrocities committed by Italian troops against the defenceless populations in the districts of Krasic, Vidovina and Brovac, where several villages have been burnt down. . . . Even if some Communists should have succeeded in taking refuge there, I can vouch that there were not, and are not now, any Communists among the village population.”

Pope Pius XII ( center) meets with members of what Rutler calls the forces of “great good,” in this case the Canadian Royal 22nd Regiment, following the liberation of Rome in June 1944. Pius XII refrained from directly rebuffing Hitler and Mussolini and kept channels open to their regimes. Yet, he understood that Hitler, in particular, represented true evil.   While remaining neutral, he did as much as he could to mitigate suffering in World War II.

In France, the activities of the Catholic Church against the Nazis were so significant that the editor of a Protestant French newspaper wrote: “The militant Catholics in our country have taken a place which is important and, we do not fear to say, preponderant, at the head of the movement of resistance in which, very often, they have taken the initiative, and of which they remain the inspiration.”   The 81-year-old Auxiliary Bishop of Paris, Emanuele-Anatole-Raphael Chaptal de Chanteloupe wore a Star of David in protest again the deportation of Jews, and soon was buried wearing it. The collaborationist Vichy radio mocked Cardinal Gerlier of Lyons for hiding Jews and resistance fighters: he was “an ex-lawyer who late in life became an archbishop more as a result of the omnipotent grace of the House of Rothschild than to the laws of Holy Mother Church.”  When German officials ordered the Jews of Beauvais to register at the municipal headquarters, Bishop Felix Roeder claimed a distant Jewish antecedent and was the first to register, processing through the street in full pontifical vestments, and preceded by an acolyte carrying the Cross.

Rutler notes that in the war’s distress, increasing appeals were being made to the Pope for help and advocacy. L’Osservatore Romano published an article on the history of papal diplomatic prerogatives by General Francois de Castelnau, president of the French Federation National Catholique. He pointed to the irony by which the European powers in the 19th century had threatened to exclude the Pope from their deliberations, while turning to him in crises. Seemingly debilitated by the loss of the papal states in 1870, the papacy ironically took on a new prestige when its loss of temporal power gave it a grander kind of neutrality. In 1885, Bismarck, only ten years removed from the Kulturkampf, had asked the Pope to arbitrate between two nations, Spain and Germany, for the first time in three centuries. In 1890, the Pope was asked to mediate between Great Britain and Portugal a matter of navigation on the Zambesi. That same year, US President Grover Cleveland desired a papal arbitration between Venezuela and Great Britain to define the frontier between Venezuela and Guyana. Five years later Cleveland asked Pope Leo XIII to do the same for Haiti and Santo Domingo.   However, the Nazis had contempt for the appeal to neutrality, and the pontiff’s ability to intervene on issues was more constrained. In February 1942, the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Palestine and former Chief Rabbi of Ireland (1921 to 1936), Dr. Yitzhak Halevi Herzog, published a statement saying that he had appealed to the Pope to intervene with the combatant powers on behalf of European Jewry. Without out noting specifics, the Holy See replied that “the Pope is doing everything in his power on behalf of the persecuted Jews of Europe.”  It was telling that Rabbi Herzog, who remained as Chief Rabbi until 1959, would eventually remark about the Pius XII, “The people of Israel will never forget what His Holiness and his illustrious delegates are doing for our unfortunate brothers and sisters in the most tragic hour of our history, which is living proof of Divine Providence in this world.”

Pius XII’s message on the Vatican radio on the Feast of the Transfiguration in 1942, broadcast in German, said: “God’s ship is destined to reach port safely. She will not sink, for Christ is the helmsman and the gates of hell, the onslaught of the wildest waves and of the spiritual U-boat action (“Geistige U-boot Arbeit”) of godless neo-paganism will not harm her… For while paganism cannot build up, still less can neo-paganism, which lacks even that nobility of mind and true humanity which was found in the old pagans.” When Christmas came in 1942, The New York Times said Pius XII “is a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent.”

There is much more in Principalities and Powers. After starting it, the book is hard to put down.

Causa latet, vis est notissima! (The cause is hidden, but its force is very well known!) Rutler views the test of character in the struggles of the world’s greatest war as a litmus for how the present generation should and should not behave in the face of challenges. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott well-described ISIS as a “death cult,” but the imbalanced, barbaric behavior of ISIS has flummoxed Western governments wanting to categorize the organization and appropriately respond to it. As Rutler shows in Principalities and Powers, the starting point for understanding ISIS or any similar organization that might arise is its main characteristic, which is evil. Principalities and Powers may support the development of a better understanding of ISIS, what it represents, and the devising of new approaches to defeat it. As it is greatcharlie’s mission to provide commentary and advice for foreign and defense policy makers, political and business leaders, and policy aficionados worldwide, we enthusiastically recommend Principalities and Powers to our readers.

By Mark Edmond Clark